Element-specific spin and orbital moments in Fe1-xVx alloys

We present transmission-mode X-ray magnetic circular dichroism (XMCD) measurements of element specific magnetic moments for Fe and V at the L-2,L-3 edges in polycrystalline Fe1-xVx ultrathin films. We find that the orbital-to-spin moment ratio of Fe does not change within experimental error. The V XMCD is not very informative, and a nearly pure-spin type V impurity moment (similar to 1.0 mu(B)/atom, antiparallel to the Fe host moment) is assumed to match known magnetization data. Data are further reduced to a two-sublattice model and found to be compatible with known spectroscopic splitting g-factor data in the alloy. The results confirm that the very low Gilbert damping, attained through the introduction of V into epitaxial Fe1-xVx films and found by ferromagnetic resonance (FMR), does not result from the reduction of orbital moment content in the alloy. (C) 2008 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.