Epitaxial &agr;‐Fe films have been grown on HF cleaned Si(111) substrates at 30 °C by electron beam evaporation in an ultrahigh vacuum environment to a thickness of several thousands of Angstroms. Conventional &thgr;−2&thgr; x‐ray diffraction shows that only the Fe(222) peak is present, indicating that the films are oriented with the Fe(111) plane parallel to the Si(111) plane. Transmission electron microscopy shows that the Fe[11¯0] direction is parallel to the Si[11¯0] direction in the plane of the substrate.