Growth structure and magnetic properties of Fe monolayers on Cu84Al16(100)

Abstract

We present experimental results on the growth and structure of Fe overlayers deposited on Cu84Al16(100) and discuss the correlation between the structural and magnetic properties of this system. Fe films 1-6 monolayers (ML) thick were grown under molecular beam epitaxy conditions onto the clean substrate at 160 K. Electron diffraction was applied to investigate the structure of the Fe films. The magnetic properties were investigated in situ by surface magneto-optical Kerr effect in the longitudinal geometry. Our results show that the onset of in-plane ferromagnetism around 3.5 ML of Fe coincides with structural changes that suggest a transformation within the Fe films from a fcc-like (100) to a bcc-like (110) structure with increasing Fe thickness, starting from 2.5 ML.