Geometrical and chemical environment effects on the magnetism of stepped surfaces of V and V over Fe

By means of a real-space tight-binding calculation we obtain the spin-polarization of vicinal (1, 0, 2n?1) vanadium surface, and of one V layer deposited on vicinal (1, 0, 2n?1) iron surfaces (n=1,2,3,4). These geometries can be viewed as a staircase on the (001) surface with steps of monoatomic height andn-atoms width. Forn≤2, the pure V stepped surfaces do not show magnetism which is consistent with the absence of spinpolarization at the (101) surface. By contrast, magnetism is always obtained when a V monolayer is deposited on Fe stepped substrate, which is due to the hybridization of d-orbitals of V and Fe. Furthermore, in all the cases where magnetism is obtained, the surface V atoms at the edge of the step result to be antiferromagnetically coupled with all kink atoms. The effect of this local defect on the magnetic structure seems to remain when approaching the (001) surface (n→∞).