Quantitative experimental determination of site-specific magnetic structures by transmitted electrons.
Understanding the magnetic structure of materials on a nanometre scale provides fundamental information in the development of novel applications. Here we show a site-specific electron energy-loss magnetic chiral dichroism method, first experimentally demonstrating that the use of transmitted electrons allows us to quantitatively determine atomic site-specific magnetic structure information on a nanometre scale. From one NiFe(2)O(4) nanograin in composite films, we extract its atomic site-specific magnetic circular dichroism spectra and achieve the quantitative magnetic structure information, such as site-specific total magnetic moments and orbital to spin magnetic moment ratios, by constructively selecting the specific dynamical diffraction conditions in electron energy-loss magnetic chiral dichroism experiments. The site-specific electron energy-loss magnetic chiral dichroism method shows its unique ability for solving the site-specific magnetic structure at nanoscale resolution, compared with X-ray magnetic circular dichroism and neutron diffraction. This work opens a door to meet the challenge of exploring the magnetic structures of magnetic materials at the nanoscale using transmitted electrons.
Beijing National Center for Electron Microscopy, Laboratory of Advanced Materials and Department of Materials Science and Engineering, Tsinghua University, Beijing 100084, China.
Z Q
ZQ
Wang
X Y
XY
Zhong
R
R
Yu
Z Y
ZY
Cheng
J
J
Zhu