Indication of a ferromagnetic submonolayer of ruthenium on palladium

Abstract:

Thin Pd films with submonolayers of Ru are investigated by means of the anomalous Hall effect and weak localization. The anomalous Hall resistance yields the magnetization of the film as a function of the applied magnetic field B. The susceptibility is only weakly temperature dependent. This suggests that the Pd/Ru is weakly ferromagnetic showing large spin wave excitations. The maximum magnetization is found for a coverage of about 0.1 atomic layers of Ru. For larger coverages the Ru moment decreases strongly. This is confirmed by the behavior of the electron dephasing rate determined from magnetoresistance measurements.