pi-electron ferromagnetism in metal-free carbon probed by soft x-ray dichroism.
Elemental carbon represents a fundamental building block of matter and the possibility of ferromagnetic order in carbon has attracted widespread attention. However, the origin of magnetic order in such a light element is only poorly understood and has puzzled researchers. We present a spectromicroscopy study at room temperature of proton irradiated metal-free carbon using the elemental and chemical specificity of x-ray magnetic circular dichroism. We demonstrate that the magnetic order in the investigated system originates only from the carbon pi-electron system.
Ohldag
H
H
Stanford Synchrotron Radiation Laboratory, Stanford University, P.O. Box 20450, Menlo Park, California 94025, USA. hohldag@stanford.edu
Tyliszczak
T
T
Höhne
R
R
Spemann
D
D
Esquinazi
P
P
Ungureanu
M
M
Butz
T
T
D002244:Carbon / Q000737:chemistry*; D002942:Circular Dichroism; D004583:Electrons; D007501:Iron / Q000737:chemistry*; D008280:Magnetics; D018625:Microscopy, Atomic Force; D013052:Spectrometry, X-Ray Emission
D002244:Carbon; D007501:Iron