Strong K-edge magnetic circular dichroism observed in photon-in-photon-out spectroscopy.
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.
Sikora
Marcin
M
Faculty of Physics and Applied Computer Science, AGH University of Science and Technology, 30-059 Kraków, Poland. marcin.sikora@agh.edu.pl
Juhin
Amélie
A
Weng
Tsu-Chien
TC
Sainctavit
Philippe
P
Detlefs
Carsten
C
de Groot
Frank
F
Glatzel
Pieter
P