Suppression of ferromagnetic order of Fe overlayers on the Rh(001) surface

The magnetic phase of thin Fe overlayers on top of a Rh(001) surface has be en probed using the surface magneto-optical Kerr effect. Quite surprisingly , we have found a suppression of ferromagnetic order up to six atomic layer s of Fe. Not until Fe coverage reaches above seven layers does a ferromagne tic order start to develop. The suppression of ferromagnetic order is attri buted to the tetragonally distorted cubic structure, which has been predict ed to favor anitiferromagnetic ordering from our first-principles calculati on using the full potential linearized augmented plane-wave method. [S0163- 1829(99)12943-6].