X-ray magnetic circular dichroism study of uranium/iron multilayers

X-ray magnetic circular dichroism (XMCD) measurements were performed at the U M(4,5) edges and Fe K edge on well-defined uranium/iron multilayers with different compositions. The multilayers have layer thicknesses in the range 9-40 A for uranium and 9-34 A for iron. At both 10 K and room temperature, the U layers are magnetically polarized in all of the multilayers studied. To deduce the magnetic moment on the uranium from the XMCD results requires assumptions about the magnetic dipole operator <T(Z)> in the analysis, and this is discussed in detail. Given the most likely scenario of strong hybridization between the U 5f and Fe 3d states, the largest value of the induced U moment is similar to 0.12 mu(B), which is located primarily at the interface and oscillates within the uranium layer.