Magnetism of nanoscale Fe islands studied by spin-polarized scanning tunneling spectroscopy - art. no. 140407

We have performed low-temperature (T=15 K) spin-polarized scanning tunnelin g spectroscopy of nanoscale Fe islands with a height of two atomic layers, grown on a stepped W(110) surface and surrounded by a closed monolayer (ML) Fe. These islands are single domain particles up to a coverage of 1.5 pseu domorphic ML and keep an antiferromagnetic out-of-plane ordering far beyond the onset of their coalescence. For small islands we observe a reorientati on to in-plane magnetization between 2 and 3 nm island width due to exchang e coupling to the in-plane magnetized ML.