Thickness dependent properties of magnetic ultrathin films

The dependence of magnetic properties on the thickness of few-layer thin films is investigated at finite temperature using the functional integral method for solving the Heisenberg spin model. The temperature dependence of the ultra-thin film's magnetization and Curie temperature are calculated in terms of the mean field theory and of the Gaussian spin fluctuation approximations. It has been shown that both Curie temperature and temperature interval, where the magnetization is non-zero, are strongly reduced with the thickness reduction by using the spin fluctuation approximations in comparison with the mean field results. Curie temperature dependence on the film thickness calculated numerically well agrees with the experimental data for Ni/Cu(1 0 0) and Ni/Cu(1 1 1) ultrathin films.