Theoretical study of magnetic layers of nickel on copper; dead or alive?

We studied the persistence of magnetism in ultrathin nickel films on copper . Layer-dependent magnetic moments in Ni films on the (001), (110) and (111 ) surfaces of Cu have been calculated using the Korringa-Kohn-Rostoker Gree n's function method. The results show that, at temperature T = 0, a single nickel monolayer is ferromagnetic on Cu(001) and Cu(110) but magnetically ' dead' on the more closely packed Cu(lll) surface. Films of two and more lay ers of Ni are always ferromagnetic, with the magnetic moment enhanced in th e surface layer hut strongly reduced in the interface layer. Due to the sho rt screening length, both the effect of the interface and that of the surfa ce are confined to only a few atomic layers.