Adsorption-driven spin reorientation transition in sesquilayers of Fe(110) on W(110)

Epitaxial sesquilayers (sesqui = one and a half) of Fe(110), prepared near room temperature on W(110), are composed of a pseudomorphic monolayer sea which is ferromagnetically magnetized in the plane below its Curie temperature T-c(ML) = 222 K, and a system of pseudomorphic double layer islands which just after preparation are perpendicularly magnetized at room temperature. During exposure to residual gas, the double-layer islands switch to in-plane magnetization. This adsorption-driven spin reorientation transition is studied using torsion oscillation magnetometry (TOM), for the case of a sesquilayer consisting of 1.46 pseudomorphic layers, prepared at 325 K.