Soft X-ray resonant magnetic scattering from thin Ni layers on Cu(110)

Resonant scattering of elliptically polarised soft X-rays has been used to investigate the magnetic properties of thin uncapped Ni layers grown on Cu(110). In our experiment, performed at room temperature, Ni is found to have no net magnetic moment in the surface plane up to 6 ML. Starting from 10 and up to 30 ML a magnetic signal is observed that can be reproduced by calculations which assume the bulk magnetic properties of Ni. Our results are compared to those of previous studies on Ni/Cu(001) layers. (C) 1999 Elsevier Science B.V. All rights reserved.