Partial oxidation in a dense phase sub-monolayer of Fe-phthalocyanine on Ag(110)

In this contribution we report on the structural and magnetic changes along a catalytic cycle of a new dense, “quasi-squared” FePc submonolayer phase (R3) evaporated on Ag(110). X-ray magnetic circular dichroism (XMCD) experiments at the Fe L2,3 edge were performed on four samples: the as-evaporated phase (R3), two differently oxygenated samples (OX1 and OX2) and the annealed phase (ANN). It is concluded that all characterized phases display planar anisotropy, and the values of mseff/nh are one order of magnitude larger than mL/nh. By oxidation, the isotropic moment increases from 7.2 x 10⁻² mB/hole to 1.8 x 10⁻¹ mB/hole, which is about a factor of 2 smaller than the increase achieved for the low-density phase.