X-ray magnetic circular dichroism (XMCD) measurements were performed at the U $M_{4,5}$ edges and Fe $K$ edge on well-defined uranium/iron multilayers with different compositions. The multilayers have layer thicknesses in the range $9–40\mathrm{\AA }$ for uranium and $9–34\mathrm{\AA }$ for iron. At both $10\mathrm{K}$ and room temperature, the U layers are magnetically polarized in all of the multilayers studied. To deduce the magnetic moment on the uranium from the XMCD results requires assumptions about the magnetic dipole operator $⟨T_Z⟩$ in the analysis, and this is discussed in detail. Given the most likely scenario of strong hybridization between the $\mathrm{U}5f$ and $\mathrm{Fe}3d$ states, the largest value of the induced U moment is $\sim 0.12{\mathrm{\mu }}_{\mathrm{B}}$, which is located primarily at the interface and oscillates within the uranium layer.

• Received 30 March 2006

DOI:https://doi.org/10.1103/PhysRevB.76.024425