Surface Magnetism of Ni(100) near the Critical Region by Spin-Polarized Electron Scattering

Abstract

It is shown that scattering of polarized low-energy electrons can be used to study magnetic critical behavior of well-characterized, free surfaces. For the topmost layers of the Ni(100) surface of a single-crystal magnetic circuit it is found that, in the temperature range $0.008<~1\ensuremath{-}\frac{T}{{T}_{\mathrm{C}}}<~0.1$, the magnetization decreases with the critical exponent ${\ensuremath{\beta}}_{1}={0.825}_{\ensuremath{-}0.040}^{+0.025}$, possibly indicating $\mathrm{XY}$ coupling at the Ni surface.