Atomic Investigation of Fe–Cu Magnetic Thin Films by Molecular Dynamics Simulation

Abstract

The deposition behavior of an Fe–Cu magnetic metallic multilayer system was investigated at the atomic level using molecular dynamics simulation. It was found that a mixture confined to a single atomic layer at the Cu(001) surface was formed at room temperature. The Fe–Cu system shows mixing characteristics such as layer coverage function and mixing length, that are significantly different from those of the Fe–Al metallic system. The different intermixing behavior could be successfully explained in terms of cohesive energy and atomic size mismatch.