Low relaxation rate in epitaxial vanadium-doped ultrathin iron films

The longest relaxation time and sharpest frequency content in ferromagnetic precession is determined by the intrinsic (Gilbert) relaxation rate G. For many years, pure iron (Fe) has had the lowest known value of G = 57 MHz for all pure ferromagnetic metals or binary alloys. We show that an epitaxial iron alloy with vanadium (V) possesses values of G which are significantly reduced to 35 +/- 5 MHz at 27% V. The result can be understood as the role of spin-orbit coupling in generating relaxation, reduced through the atomic number Z.