The magnetic map of thin Mn overlayers on Ni(0 0 1)

Abstract Following experimental works of Wuttig et al. (Phys. Rev. Lett. 70 (1993) 3619) and O'Brien and Tonner (Phys. Rev. B 51 (1995) 617) very Mn thin films overlayers on Ni(0 0 1) have been investigated through ab initio density functional theory with generalized gradient corrections. A relaxed two-dimensional Mn 0.5 Ni 0.5 ordered surface alloy shows evidence of ferromagnetic metastable solution in reasonable agreement with experimental results.