Effect of iron on vanadium (001) strained surface magnetism

Abstract

The magnetism of the vanadium (001) surface has been a controversial subject on both theoretical and experiment fronts. Both strongly ferromagnetic and paramagnetic phases were reported. We have used the first principle full-potential linearized-augmented plane waves (FP-LAPW) as implemented in WIEN2k package to study the magnetic properties of strained surfaces of vanadium films as a function of film thickness. We found that for films thicker than about 11 monolayers, the magnetism of the strained surfaces converge to a constant value of about 0.15μB. Introduction of Fe monolayers and impurities at the centre of the films affects the magnetic structure of thin films but has no influence on the surface magnetism of thicker films. For Fe monolayers positioned at the centre of thick films, the Fe atoms maintain magnetic moment of order 0.86μB, a quadruple splitting of order -0.3 mm/s and a small negative isomer shift, while an Fe impurity has vanishing hyperfine fields and magnetic moment. In addition we have varied the location of the Fe monolayer and impurity within the V films and found that their position affects the surface magnetism.