Surface and Thin Film Magnetization of Transition Metals

Abstract

The dependence ofthe Curie temperature and the direction of magnetization on the reduced dimensionality is investigated. The diminished coordination number can lead to competing effects on the magnetic ordering. For certain cases the Curie temperature for surfaces or thin films is larger than for the respective bulk system. A strong magnetic surface anisotropy causes possibly a canted magnetization of the surface. In thin films a reorientation of the thin film magnetization is observed in some systems with increasing temperature and film thickness, accompanied by a range of strongly diminished magnetization. This is due to the fragmentation of the uniform thin film magnetization with perpendicular orientation into a periodic magnetic domain structure. The domain phase is stabilized by the long range magnetic dipole interaction. We show that a small applied magnetic field is able to restore the uniform phase.