The chemistry of the gadolinium--nickel interface

Gadolinium overlayers on Ni(111) have been studied by angle resolved photoemission, angle resolved AES, LEED, and RHEED. We have observed pronounced interdiffusion of nickel with the gadolinium overlayer at temperatures as low as 150 K. This is in marked contrast with gadolinium overlayers on Cu(100) where substantial interdiffusion is not observed until 360 K, but is consistent with studies of ytterbium on nickel. [A. Nilsson, B Eriksson, N. Martenssom, J. N. Andersen, and J. Onsgaard, Phys. Rev. B 38, 10357, (1988) and I. Chorkendorff, J. Onsgaard, J. Schmidt--May and R. Nyholm, Surf. Sci. 160, 587, (1985).] There is a strong interfacial heat of interaction observed with gadolinium on both copper and nickel resulting in pronounced binding energy shifts observed in photoemission. An extremely small kinetic barrier to rare earth diffusion through nickel has been measured. The results are compared to transition metal overlayers on transition metal substrates