Thin Solid Films, Vol.374, No.1, 114-118, 2000
Magnetic and electronic properties of strained fcc Fe on Ir(001)
We have studied the electronic and magnetic structure of strained fee iron epitaxied on semi-infinite fee iridium (001) with a self-consistent real space tight binding Hamiltonian. In this theoretical study we tried to reproduce qualitatively the magnetic behavior, the antiferromagnetic (AF) state, obtained by other authors. The calculation of the magnetic properties shows that for both systems fcc Fe-x/Ir (x = 2 and 3 ML), we obtain an antiferromagnetic interlayer coupling between Fe atoms. This behavior is related to the hybridization between Fe and Ir, which takes place at the interface, and which influences considerably the physical properties of the deposited iron films. In each Fe-layer and particularly for the Fe-1/Ir system, the iron atoms are aligned ferromagnetically. The magnetic moment of the iron atoms on Ir is considerably reduced with respect to that of the isolated monolayer, bilayer and trilayer Fe(001). The AF interlayer coupling and the reduction of the interatomic distances are responsible for this decrease of the iron moments.