Crystalline and Interfacial Structure of Ultrathin Co Layers Grown on Pd(111): A59Co NMR Study

59Co nuclear magnetic resonance (NMR) was employed to study the growth of ultrathin Co/Fe and Co/Cu layers on a Pd(111) single crystal on an atomic scale. Co starts to grow in a dense-packed fcc(111) structure on Pd(111), but for thicker layers a mixture of fcc(111) and hcp(0001) evolves. The top Co interface is found to be almost perfect. On the other hand, the Pd/Co interface is far from ideal. Co intermixes with the Pd and forms a CoPd interface alloy, which has consequences for the interpretation of the strong perpendicular magnetic anisotropy (PMA) observed in Pd(111)/Co/Pd.