WEAK ANTIFERROMAGNETISM OF MONOLAYERS AND MULTILAYERS OF V ON AU FILMS

Weak localization and the anomalous Hall effect are used to study the magnetic properties of submonolayers, monolayers, and multilayers of vanadium on the surface of Au films. Dilute V atoms possess a strong magnetic moment. For a monolayer the magnetic scattering is reduced by a factor of about 40. This suggests a strongly reduced moment of the V compared with the dilute V coverage. From the anomalous Hall effect we conclude that the magnetic structure is antiferromagnetic. For multilayers the moment per V atom progressively diminishes but is still finite for 16 atomic layers of V.