Open AccessX‐ray magnetic circular dichroism used to image magnetic domains
Author(s) -
Fischer P.,
Eimüller T.,
Kalchgruber R.,
Schütz G.,
Schmahl G.,
Guttmann P.,
Bayreuther G.
Publication year - 1999
Publication title -
journal of synchrotron radiation
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
SCImago Journal Rank - 1.172
H-Index - 99
ISSN - 1600-5775
DOI - 10.1107/s0909049598016616
Subject(s) - magnetic circular dichroism , x ray magnetic circular dichroism , circular dichroism , vibrational circular dichroism , x ray , nuclear magnetic resonance , physics , materials science , optics , crystallography , chemistry , astronomy , spectral line
zation onto the photon propagation direction in ferromagnetic samples. At L-edges in 3d transition metals relative changes in the absorption cross section up to 50% occur, so that X-MCD can serve as a huge magnetic contrast in imaging techniques which are based on photon absorption. The first attempt using X-MCD in magnetic microscopy involved a photoemission microscope (PEEM) (Stoehr et al., 1993) where a spatial resolution of a few/zm could be obtained. This experiment, however, is restricted to studies in zero magnetic field. Several attempts are currently on the way to use XMCD for the imaging of magnetic domains, see e.g. Warwick et al., 1998. A new concept to image magnetic domains even on the nm scale is the combination of a high resolution transmission X-ray microscope (TXM) with X-MCD in the complementary transmission mode (Magnetic TXM = M-TXM) (Fischer et al., 1996).