Björn Roos, A. Frank, Serguei Demokritov, Burkard Hillebrands

• Epitaxial growth of metastable Pd(001) at high deposition temperatures up to a critical thickness of 6 monolayers on bcc-Fe(001) is reported, the critical thickness being depending dramatically on the deposition temperature. For larger thicknesses the Pd film undergoes a roughening transition with strain relaxation by forming a top polycrystalline layer. These results allow to make a correlation between previ-ously reported unusual magnetic properties of Fe/Pd double layers and the crystallographic structure of the Pd overlayer.