Strong K-edge Magnetic Circular Dichroism Observed in Photon-in-Photon-out Spectroscopy

Marcin Sikora (1) , Amélie Juhin (2) , Tsu-Chien Weng (3) , Philippe Sainctavit (4) , Carsten Detlefs (3) , Frank de Groot (2) , Pieter Glatzel (3)

1 AGH UST - AGH University of Science and Technology [Krakow, PL]
2 Department of Inorganic Chemistry and Catalysis
3 ESRF - European Synchrotron Radiation Facility
4 IMPMC - Institut de minéralogie et de physique des milieux condensés

A large enhancement of the x-ray magnetic circular dichroism is observed at the iron K absorption preedge of magnetite. This is achieved by performing resonant inelastic x-ray scattering (RIXS) experiments with a 2p hole in the final state of the second-order optical process. We measured and calculated the full 1s2p RIXS planes for opposite helicities of the incoming circularly polarized x rays. The crystal field multiplet calculations show that the enhancement arises from 2p-3d Coulomb repulsions and 2p and 3d spin-orbit coupling. The observed magnitude of the RIXS magnetic circular dichroism effect is ∼16%. This opens up new opportunities for a broad range of research fields allowing for truly bulk-sensitive, element-, and site-selective measurements of 3d transition metal magnetic moments and their ordering using hard x-ray photons.

Domaines: Science des matériaux [cond-mat.mtrl-sci]

Marcin Sikora, Amélie Juhin, Tsu-Chien Weng, Philippe Sainctavit, Carsten Detlefs, et al.. Strong K-edge Magnetic Circular Dichroism Observed in Photon-in-Photon-out Spectroscopy. Physical Review Letters, 2010, 105 (3), pp.037202. ⟨10.1103/PhysRevLett.105.037202⟩. ⟨hal-00656858⟩