Eur. Phys. J. B 28, 305-313 (2002)
https://doi.org/10.1140/epjb/e2002-00234-6

Reactivity and magnetism of Fe/InAs(100) interfaces

¹ National Institute for Research and Development in Materials Physics, Bucharest-Magurele PO Box MG7, 76900 Romania
² LURE, bâtiment 209d, Centre Universitaire Paris-Sud, BP 34, 91898 Orsay Cedex, France
³ LPMS, Université de Cergy-Pontoise, 95031 Cergy-Pontoise Cedex, France
⁴ CNR-ISM, via Fosso del Cavaliere, 100, 00133 Roma Italy

Corresponding author: ^a C.Teodorescu@dl.ac.uk

Received: 4 April 2002
Revised: 13 May 2002
Published online: 31 July 2002

Abstract

Interface reaction and magnetism of epitaxially-grown Fe on InAs(100) are studied by core-level photoemission (As 3d and In 4d) and Fe 2p X-ray magnetic circular dichroism using synchrotron radiation. The reactivity of Fe/InAs(100) is relatively low compared to that of other interfaces involving deposition of 3d metals on III-V semiconductors. As a consequence, we observe a magnetic signal at Fe edges for the lowest thicknesses studied (1 ML). The atomic magnetic moment reaches a value close to that of the bulk α-Fe (2.2 ) for Fe coverages exceeding 5 ML. A ferromagnetic compound with approximate stoichiometry of FeAs is formed at the interface. The orbital magnetism represents between 12 and 20% of the total momentum, due to 3d density of states depletion and to crystal-field modification of the electronic levels. These properties make the Fe/InAs(100) interface very promising for spin-tunneling devices.