Crystal and magnetic structures of Sm epitaxial thin films and Sm/Y superlattices

Epitaxial Sm thin films and Sm/Y superlattices have been grown with a high single-crystal quality. The complex nine hexagonal close-packed planes stac king sequence has been successfully obtained in a 5000-Angstrom-thick film, whose magnetic behavior presents a long-range antiferromagnetic order of t he hexagonal sites below 100 K, as in the bulk element. However, from neutr on scattering, the relative magnetic and nuclear contributions indicate a s ignificant enhancement of the magnetic moment compared to the bulk value. F or the superlattice, the neutron-scattering results show neither long-range structural coherence of the stacking sequence along the c direction nor a coherent magnetic ordering at low temperatures. [S0163-1829(99)15035-5].