I will introduce the method of atomistic spin dynamics which is becoming increasingly used to model magnetic materials including thermodynamics and dynamical behaviour. As well as a basic introduction I will talk about recent advances including the use of quantum thermostats which fix historical issues that inhibited quantitative calculations. I will use my recent work modelling the complex magnetic insulator Yttrium Iron Garnet—a key material in spintronics experiments—to demonstrate that we can now calculate quantitative thermodynamics of properties which are difficult to access experimentally via a multi scale approach which can start from neutron scattering data or first principles calculations.

References:
J. Barker, D. Pashov and J. Jackson, Electronic structure and finite temperature magnetism of yttrium iron garnet, Electron. Struct. 2, 044002 (2020) arxiv.org/pdf/2009.14601.pdf
Y. Nambu, J. Barker, Y. Okino et al., Observation of Magnon Polarization, Phys. Rev. Lett. 125, 027201 (2020) arxiv.org/pdf/1911.11968.pdf
J. Barker and G.E.W. Bauer, Semiquantum thermodynamics of complex ferrimagnets, Phys. Rev. B 100, 140401® (2019) arxiv.org/pdf/1902.00449.pdf