Highly spin-polarized sources of electrons, Integrated into device design, remain of great interest to the spintronic and magneto-electronic device community Here, the growth of Fe upon GaAs(001) has been studied with photoelectron spectroscopy (PES), including Spin Resolved PES. Despite evidence of atomic level disorder such as intermixing, an over-layer with the spectroscopic signature of alpha-Fe(001), with a bcc real space ordering, Is obtained The results will be discussed in light of the possibility of using such films as a spin-polarized source in device applications.

A spin-resolving photoelectron spectrometer, the "Spin Spectrometer," has been designed and built. It has been utilized at both the Advanced Light Source in Berkeley, CA, and the Advanced Photon Source in Argonne, IL. Technical details and an example of experimental results are presented here.