Investigation of ferromagnetic surfaces with spin polarized metastable He(2 3S) atoms

Electron spectra of tungsten (110) and of thin cobalt (0001) films, clean and after oxygen exposure, have been taken using metastable de-excitation spectroscopy (MDS). The spectra of remanently magnetized Co(0001), obtained with spin polarized MDS (SPMDS), show different intensities in the cobalt induced structure when reversing the polarization of the incident spin polarized He(2 3S) atomic beam. Due to the extreme surface sensitivity and the spin selectivity of the de-excitation process, this is evidence of differences in the spin resolved density of states of the outermost cobalt layer. (orig.)