Magnetic interface states and finite-size effects

Abstract

Studies of the formation of a nonmagnetic/magnetic silver/iron interface by spin-polarized photoemission identify magnetic interface states showing discrete binding energies dependent on the number of atomic layers in the overlayer. The results for one layer of silver on iron are in good agreement with a full-potential linearized-augmented-plane-wave calculation and tight-binding modeling allows us to reproduce qualitatively the layer-dependent binding energies for one, two, and three layers of silver on iron. The interface states appear to be related to a minority surface resonance on the iron surface.