  We report a study of the local magnetism in thin films of SrRuO3 grown on
(111) and (001) oriented SrTiO3 substrates using x-ray magnetic circular
dichroism spectroscopy (XMCD) at the Ru-L2,3 edges. The application of the sum
rules to the XMCD data gives an almost quenched orbital moment and a spin
moment close to the value expected for the low spin state S = 1 .
Full-multiplet cluster calculations indicate that the low spin state is quite
stable and suggest that the occurrence of a transition to the high spin state S
= 2 in strained thin films of SrRuO3 is unlikely as it would be too expensive
in energy.
