First-principles study of the gap in the spin excitation spectrum of the CrI3 honeycomb ferromagnet

The nature of the gap observed at the zone border in the spin excitation spectrum of CrI3 quasitwo-dimensional single crystals is still controversial. We perform first-principles calculations based on time-dependent density functional perturbation theory, which indicate that the observed gap results from a combination of spin-orbit and interlayer interaction effects. The former give rise to the anisotropic spin-spin interactions that are responsible for its very existence, while the latter determine both its displacement from the K point of the Brillouin zone, due to the in-plane lattice distortions induced by them, and an enhancement of its magnitude, in agreement with experiments and previous theoretical work based on a lattice model.