Growth and magnetic properties of Fe films on vicinal to (001) substrates

We report on investigations of the crystallographic structure and the magne tic anisotropies of epitaxial iron films deposited onto periodically steppe d Ag(001) surfaces using low energy electron diffraction, x-ray diffraction , second harmonic generation (SHG), as well as the Brillouin light scatteri ng (BLS) technique. The focus of the present study lies on the interrelatio n between the surface morphology of the buffer layers and the magnetic prop erties of the Fe films, epitaxially grown onto them. Especially the symmetr y breaking at the atomic steps is found to create an uniaxial magnetic anis otropy measured by BLS and a very strong anisotropic signal in magnetic SHG . (C) 2000 American Institute of Physics. [S0021-8979(00)50708-7].