Dzyaloshinskii–Moriya interactions in systems with fabrication induced strain gradients: An ab-initio study

Abstract The Dzyaloshinskii–Moriya (DM) vectors arising from a fabrication induced perpendicular strain gradient in a film of bcc Fe are calculated by a combination of the ab initio density functional electron theory with a micromagnetic model. It is shown that even for large strain gradients the absolute values of the DM vectors are 1–2 orders of magnitude smaller than those calculated recently for a Fe bilayer on W(1 1 0). The breaking of the symmetry of the static and dynamic properties of a magnetic vortex with respect to its polarization is discussed for systems with DM interactions.