Crystallography of ultrathin iron, cobalt and nickel films grown epitaxially on copper

Though correlations between surface structure and magnetism are evident, surface structure determinations of ultrathin magnetic films in the crystallographic sense are available only for a few cases. We investigate the three examples Ni/Cu(100), Co/Cu(111) and Fe/Cu(100) which each exhibit only little film-substrate lattice misfit but which are rather different as regards the native lattice symmetry of the materials involved. Correspondingly, the structures of the films are rather different. They are described for various film thicknesses in each case and a comparison with the magnetic properties is made.