COMPARISON OF PULSED-LASER DEPOSITION AND THERMAL DEPOSITION - IMPROVED LAYER-BY-LAYER GROWTH OF FE CU(III)/

In the search for a correlation between the magnetism and the microstr ucture of ultrathin films, straightforward layer-by-layer growth is de sirable. The thermal deposition of Fe onto Cu(lll), however, does not result in this growth mode. In this letter, we compare the initial gro wth of Fe on Cu(lll) prepared by pulsed laser deposition (PLD) with th ermally deposited Fe/Cu(111)- using scanning tunneling microscopy (STM ). In PLD, from the beginning there is two-dimensional nucleation and growth, in contrast to the initial bilayer nucleation and growth found for thermal deposition. Therefore, it is shown by STM that PLD grown films exhibit greatly improved layer-by-layer growth. The different ex perimental results are interpreted in terms of the very high depositio n rate during PLD. (C) 1996 American Institute of Physics.