The structure and stability of small copper clusters with up to ten atoms has been determined both for the neutral and the ionic clusters with density functional calculations. The calculations were of all-electron type. The structure optimization and frequency analysis were performed on the local density approximation level with the exchange correlation functional by Vosko, Wilk, and Nusair. Subsequently improved calculations for the stability were based on the generalized gradient approximation, where the exchange correlation functional of Perdew and Wang was used. Finally, the binding energies, ionization potentials, electron affinities, and separation energies were calculated. The results show that the trends are in agreement with available experimental data.

Chiral magnets are an emerging class of topological matter harboring localized and topologically protected vortex-like magnetic textures called skyrmions, which are currently under intense scrutiny as an entity for information storage and processing. Here, on the level of micromagnetics we rigorously show that chiral magnets can not only host skyrmions but also antiskyrmions as least energy configurations over all non-trivial homotopy classes. We derive practical criteria for their occurrence and coexistence with skyrmions that can be fulfilled by (110)-oriented interfaces depending on the electronic structure. Relating the electronic structure to an atomistic spin-lattice model by means of density functional calculations and minimizing the energy on a mesoscopic scale by applying spin-relaxation methods, we propose a double layer of Fe grown on a W(110) substrate as a practical example. We conjecture that ultra-thin magnetic films grown on semiconductor or heavy metal substrates with C 2v symmetry are prototype classes of materials hosting magnetic antiskyrmions.

These results suggest that at low concentration, simvastatin exhibits positive effect on proliferation and osteoblastic differentiation of human PDL cells, and these effects may be caused by the inhibition of the mevalonate pathway.

We investigate the chiral magnetic order in free-standing planar 3d-5d bi-atomic metallic chains (3d: Fe, Co; 5d: Ir, Pt, Au) using first-principles calculations based on density functional theory. We found that the antisymmetric exchange interaction, commonly known as Dzyaloshinskii-Moriya interaction (DMI), contributes significantly to the energetics of the magnetic structure. For the Fe-Pt and Co-Pt chains, the DMI can compete with the isotropic Heisenberg-type exchange interaction and the magneto-crystalline anisotropy energy (MAE), and for both cases a homogeneous left-rotating cycloidal chiral spin-spiral with a wave length of 51Å and 36Å, respectively, were found. The sign of the DMI, that determines the handedness of the magnetic structure changes in the sequence of the 5d atoms Ir(+), Pt(−), Au(+). We used the full-potential linearized augmented plane wave method and performed self-consistent calculations of homogeneous spin spirals, calculating the DMI by treating the effect of spin-orbit interaction (SOI) in the basis of the spin-spiral states in first-order perturbation theory. To gain insight into the DMI results of our ab initio calculations, we develop a minimal tight-binding model of three atoms and 4 orbitals that contains all essential features: the spin-canting between the magnetic 3d atoms, the spin-orbit interaction at the 5d atoms, and the structure inversion asymmetry facilitated by the triangular geometry. We found that spin-canting can lead to spin-orbit active eigenstates that split in energy due to the spin-orbit interaction at the 5d atom. We show that, the sign and strength of the hybridization, the bonding or antibonding character between d-orbitals of the magnetic and non-magnetic sites, the bandwidth and the energy difference between states occupied and unoccupied states of different spin projection determine the sign and strength of the DMI. The key features observed in the trimer model are also found in the first-principles results.

The concept of anisotropy of spin relaxation in nonmagnetic metals with respect to the spin direction of the injected electrons relative to the crystal orientation is introduced. The effect is related to an anisotropy of the Elliott-Yafet parameter, arising from a modulation of the decomposition of the spin-orbit Hamiltonian into spin-conserving and spin-flip terms as the spin quantization axis is varied. This anisotropy, reaching gigantic values for uniaxial transition metals (e.g., 830% for hcp Hf) as density-functional calculations show, is related to extended "spin-flip hot areas" on the Fermi surface created by the proximity of extended sheets of the surface, or "spin-flip hot loops" at the Brillouin zone boundary, and has no theoretical upper limit. Possible ways of measuring the effect as well as consequences in application are briefly outlined.