Evidence for the half-metallic ferromagnetic state of Fe3O4 by spin-resolved photoelectron spectroscopy -: art. no. 064417

The spin-dependent electronic structure of thin epitaxial films of magnetite, Fe3O4(111), has been investigated at room temperature by means of spin-, energy-, and angle-resolved photoemission spectroscopy. Near the Fermi energy E-F a spin polarization of -(80+/-5)% is found. The spin-resolved photoemission spectra for binding energies between 1.5 eV and E-F show good agreement with spin-split band energies from density-functional calculations.