Abstract
Epitaxial Fe(001) films with thicknesses less than 20 monolayers were grown on epitaxial Au(001) surfaces by molecular beam epitaxy. All films have a fourfold anisotropy and a negligible uniaxial component. In contrast, the magnetic behavior of Fe films on GaAs(001) is governed by a superposition of a dominating uniaxial and a fourfold anisotropy component. The temperature dependence of the spontaneous magnetization MS for T<0.5TC can be well described by Bloch’s T3∕2 law for both systems. With decreasing film thickness the spin wave parameter B increases significantly compared to the bulk in both cases. However, for the same thickness B is reduced in Fe∕GaAs(001) compared to Fe∕Au(001) films. This is attributed to the presence of the strong uniaxial anisotropy in Fe∕GaAs(001) which apparently stabilizes the ferromagnetic order against thermal excitations.
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