Abstract
Fe films ranging in thickness from 6 to 90 \AA{} have been prepared on Ni layers with constant thickness of 140 \AA{} grown on Si(100) in ultrahigh vacuum. Magnetic properties have been studied by spin-polarized neutron reflection and superconducting quantum interference device magnetometry and structural properties have been investigated by small-angle x-ray reflectometry and reflection high-energy electron diffraction. As the main result of this work it is shown that the magnetic states of the Fe films strongly depend on their thicknesses. For Fe layers \ensuremath{\le}32 \AA{}, the average magnetic Fe moments come out to be very low around 0.2${\mathrm{\ensuremath{\mu}}}_{\mathrm{B}}$. For Fe layers \ensuremath{\ge}60 \AA{}, the Fe moments increase by a factor of about 10 close to the value known for bulk iron. Most probably these changes can be attributed to a structural phase transition of the Fe films from fcc-like to bcc with increasing Fe layer thickness. Fe films below 32 \AA{} are either antiferromagnetic or exhibit almost vanishing Fe moments. The discussion includes a comparison of our results for Fe/Ni bilayers with results published for Fe/Ni multilayers and for Fe films on Cu.
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