Public release of the SpinWave software, May 2016

Date: 15/06/2016
Source: LLB web

An easy-to-use and versatile software, SpinWave, to calculate spin waves in any arbitrary magnetic lattice, has been developed at the Laboratoire Léon Brillouin and is now freely available.

Public release of the SpinWave software, May 2016

Since the 1950’s, spin wave theory has been of fundamental importance in condensed matter physics. Spin waves are obtained from the linearization of the equation of motion, and can be seen as precession modes of the magnetically ordered structure, with typical energies of a few meV (or THz). Spin wave dispersions are routinely measured by neutron spectroscopy, and provide information about the coupling between spins and magnetic anisotropy parameters.

The spin wave calculating code, SpinWave, developed at the Laboratoire Léon Brillouin (LLB), allows one to simulate the spin waves spectra of commensurate, as well as incommensurate magnetic structures, using linear spin-wave theory. Magnetic interactions like Heisenberg, anisotropic, Dzyaloshinskii-Moriya, etc… can be included in the Hamiltonian. In addition to the dispersion, spin-spin correlation functions, chiral correlations, with or without magnetic form factor, can be calculated. Calculations in any direction of the reciprocal space, and constant energy cut calculations in any plane of the reciprocal space are possible, as well as the calculation of the powder-averaged spin wave spectrum. SpinWave also features the possibility to use classical energy minimization to determine the ground state magnetic structure (single k) for a set of magnetic exchange and anisotropies.

SpinWave is developed and maintained by Dr. Sylvain Petit at LLB. It can be downloaded at the following address: http://www-llb.cea.fr/logicielsllb/SpinWave/SW.html
Contact : sylvain.petit@cea.fr