Noncollinear magnetic structure of Fe Cr interfaces

A new method based on the periodic Anderson model is developed for a vector description of the magnetic moments near a stepped Fe/Cr interface. The method allows one to perform self-consistent calculations of local magnetic moment and d-electron numbers on a given atomic site for different orientations of the moment relative to the quantization axis. The self-consistent solution with minimal energy on a site under consideration is used to perform the calculation for the next step. In this approach the noncollinear magnetic structure for stepped Fe/Cr superlattices is obtained. The ground state is always noncollinear and the angle between magnetic moments of Fe layers depends on the thickness of the Cr and Fe layers. (C) 1999 Elsevier Science B.V. All rights reserved.