Publications
Morphology of Fe / MgO (001) ultrathin films
- Author(s)
- Rüdiger Reitinger, Bogdan Sepiol, Gero Vogl, Bastian Pfau, Lorenz-Mathias Stadler, Svetoslav Stankov, Federico Zontone, Nika Spiridis, Jozef Korecki
- Abstract
The structural and magnetic properties of iron clusters resulting from the evaporation of five
monolayers of iron on a polished MgO(001) substrate are examined by grazing-incidence
small-angle x-ray scattering, and conversion electron Mössbauer spectroscopy. Volmer-Weber growth is observed for room-temperature deposition, giving rise to spherical, superparamagnetic islands. Subsequent annealing causes coarsening and the particles become hemispherical. In the early stages of annealing cluster diffusion takes place, whereas later, Ostwald ripening is the dominant coarsening mechanism. The diffusion coefficient is independent from the crystallographic directions in the MgO(001) surface as it is proven by the isotropic island distribution and shape. The
superparamagnetic state of the particles is conserved during the whole annealing process. For ultrathin iron layers we show that, in contrast to bulk iron, the Curie temperature lies well below room temperature.
- Organisation(s)
- Dynamics of Condensed Systems
- External organisation(s)
- BESSY GmbH, European Synchrotron Radiation Facility ESRF, Polish Academy of Sciences (PAS), AGH University of Science and Technology
- Journal
- Journal of Applied Physics
- Volume
- 102
- Pages
- 14536-14542
- No. of pages
- 7
- ISSN
- 0021-8979
- DOI
- https://doi.org/10.1063/1.2760844
- Publication date
- 2007
- Peer reviewed
- Yes
- Austrian Fields of Science 2012
- 1030 Physics, Astronomy
- Portal url
- https://ucrisportal.univie.ac.at/en/publications/c1ebc3a1-5223-4511-8131-7a61b2ea6448