Frozen Low-Spin Interface in Ultrathin Fe Films on Cu(111)

M. A. Torija, Z. Gai, N. Myoung, E. W. Plummer, and J. Shen

Phys. Rev. Lett. 95, 027201 – Published 5 July 2005

Abstract

In ultrathin film systems, it is a major challenge to understand how a thickness-driven phase transition proceeds along the cross-sectional direction of the films. We use ultrathin Fe films on Cu(111) as a prototype system to demonstrate how to obtain such information using an in situ scanning tunneling microscope and the surface magneto-optical Kerr effect. The magnetization depth profile of a thickness-driven low-spin to high-spin magnetic phase transition is deduced from the experimental data, which leads us to conclude that a low-spin Fe layer at the $Fe / Cu$ interface stays live upon the phase transition. The magnetically live low-spin phase is believed to be induced by a frozen fcc Fe layer that survives a thickness-driven $fcc \to bcc$ structural transition.

Received 16 February 2005

DOI:https://doi.org/10.1103/PhysRevLett.95.027201

Authors & Affiliations

M. A. Torija^1,2, Z. Gai^1,3, N. Myoung^1,2, E. W. Plummer^1,2, and J. Shen^1,2,*

¹Condensed Matter Sciences Division, Oak Ridge National Laboratory, Oak Ridge, Tennessee 37831, USA
²Department of Physics and Astronomy, University of Tennessee, Knoxville, Tennessee 37996, USA
³Department of Physics, Peking University, Beijing 100080, People’s Republic of China

^*Corresponding author. Electronic address: shenj@ornl.gov

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Vol. 95, Iss. 2 — 8 July 2005

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