252 research outputs found
Surfactant-like Effect and Dissolution of Ultrathin Fe Films on Ag(001)
The phase immiscibility and the excellent matching between Ag(001) and
Fe(001) unit cells (mismatch 0.8 %) make Fe/Ag growth attractive in the field
of low dimensionality magnetic systems. Intermixing could be drastically
limited at deposition temperatures as low as 140-150 K. The film structural
evolution induced by post-growth annealing presents many interesting aspects
involving activated atomic exchange processes and affecting magnetic
properties. Previous experiments, of He and low energy ion scattering on films
deposited at 150 K, indicated the formation of a segregated Ag layer upon
annealing at 550 K. Higher temperatures led to the embedding of Fe into the Ag
matrix. In those experiments, information on sub-surface layers was attained by
techniques mainly sensitive to the topmost layer. Here, systematic PED
measurements, providing chemical selectivity and structural information for a
depth of several layers, have been accompanied with a few XRD rod scans,
yielding a better sensitivity to the buried interface and to the film long
range order. The results of this paper allow a comparison with recent models
enlightening the dissolution paths of an ultra thin metal film into a different
metal, when both subsurface migration of the deposit and phase separation
between substrate and deposit are favoured. The occurrence of a surfactant-like
stage, in which a single layer of Ag covers the Fe film is demonstrated for
films of 4-6 ML heated at 500-550 K. Evidence of a stage characterized by the
formation of two Ag capping layers is also reported. As the annealing
temperature was increased beyond 700 K, the surface layers closely resembled
the structure of bare Ag(001) with the residual presence of subsurface Fe
aggregates.Comment: 4 pages, 3 figure
Spin Reorientations Induced by Morphology Changes in Fe/Ag(001)
By means of magneto-optical Kerr effect we observe spin reorientations from
in-plane to out-of-plane and vice versa upon annealing thin Fe films on Ag(001)
at increasing temperatures. Scanning tunneling microscopy images of the
different Fe films are used to quantify the surface roughness. The observed
spin reorientations can be explained with the experimentally acquired roughness
parameters by taking into account the effect of roughness on both the magnetic
dipolar and the magnetocrystalline anisotropy.Comment: 4 pages with 3 EPS figure
Impurity Scattering from -layers in Giant Magnetoresistance Systems
The properties of the archetypal Co/Cu giant magnetoresistance (GMR)
spin-valve structure have been modified by the insertion of very thin
(sub-monolayer) -layers of various elements at different points within
the Co layers, and at the Co/Cu interface. Different effects are observed
depending on the nature of the impurity, its position within the periodic
table, and its location within the spin-valve. The GMR can be strongly enhanced
or suppressed for various specific combinations of these parameters, giving
insight into the microscopic mechanisms giving rise to the GMR.Comment: 5 pages, 2 figure
Theory of Adsorption and Surfactant Effect of Sb on Ag (111)
We present first-principles studies of the adsorption of Sb and Ag on clean
and Sb-covered Ag (111). For Sb, the {\it substitutional} adsorption site is
found to be greatly favored with respect to on-surface fcc sites and to
subsurface sites, so that a segregating surface alloy layer is formed. Adsorbed
silver adatoms are more strongly bound on clean Ag(111) than on Sb-covered Ag.
We propose that the experimentally reported surfactant effect of Sb is due to
Sb adsorbates reducing the Ag adatom mobility. This gives rise to a high
density of Ag islands which coalesce into regular layers.Comment: RevTeX 3.0, 11 pages, 0 figures] 13 July 199
Universal Scaling of Ballistic Magnetoresistance in Magnetic Nanocontacts
We show that ballistic magnetoresistance exhibits universal scaling in atomic or nanometer scale
contacts. Plotting the data as conductance, we find that, if the maximum magnetoconductance is
normalized to unity and the conductance is scaled with the conductivity of the bulk material, the data
fall in a narrow region, independent of the nanocontact materials, for our four data sets and four from
the literature. The results agree with a theory that takes into account spin-scattering within a magneticdomain
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