Probing the growth, structure, and magnetism of epitaxial films by grazing scattering of fast ions

Techniques based on grazing scattering of keV light ions to study ultrathin epitaxial films are presented. A key feature of these techniques is an extreme sensitivity to morphology, elemental composition, and magnetic properties of the topmost atomic layer of the films, as demonstrated by recent experiments on Cr, Mn, Fe, and Ir films grown on magnetized Fe(1 0 0) substrates