Atomistic simulations of magnetoelastic effects on sound velocity

Abstract

In this work, we leverage atomistic spin-lattice simulations to examine how magnetic interactions impact the propagation of sound waves through a ferromagnetic material. To achieve this, we characterize the sound wave velocity in BCC iron, a prototypical ferromagnetic material, using three different approaches that are based on the oscillations of kinetic energy, finite-displacement derived forces, and corrections to the elastic constants, respectively. Successfully applying these methods within the spin-lattice framework, we find good agreement with the Simon effect including high-order terms. In analogy to experiments, morphic coefficients associated with the transverse and longitudinal waves propagating along the [001] direction are extracted from fits to the fractional change in sound velocity data. The present efforts represent an advancement in magnetoelastic modeling capabilities which can expedite the design of future magnetoacoustic devices.