Structural, magnetic, and electronic properties of Fe/Au monatomic multilayers

An Fe/Au monatomic multilayer, consisting of alternating single Fe and Au layers, has been studied by means of the self-consistent full-potential linearized augmented plane wave method. We show by total energy minimization that this artificial thin film is in the tetragonal L10 ordered structure with the ratio of the interlayer spacing to the intralayer lattice constant at 0.865. In this configuration, the magnetic moment in each monolayer, the spin-polarized electronic density of states, and the corresponding band structure are calculated. The results are discussed in connection with recent experiments. copyright 1996 The American Physical Society