X-ray resonant exchange scattering of rare-earth nickel borocarbides

The purpose of this thesis is to investigate the systematics of the microscopic magnetic order within a series of isostructural compounds and, at the same, to develop the relatively young experimental method of x-ray resonant exchange scattering (XRES). In this thesis, the author presents XRES studies of several rare-earth nickel borocarbides, RNi{sub 2}B{sub 2}C. He shows that XRES, similar to the neutron techniques, allows the determination of the orientation of the magnetic moment by measuring the Q-dependence of the scattered intensity of magnetic Bragg reflections. As samples in this study, he chose the recently discovered family of rare-earth nickel borocarbides, RNi{sub 2}B{sub 2}C, which display a wide variety of magnetic structures. Furthermore, in several of these materials, long range magnetic order coexists with superconductivity over some temperature range