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MI: Fachverband Mikrosonden
MI 2: Analytical Transmission Electron Microscopy and Atom Probe Tomography
MI 2.3: Talk
Monday, March 16, 2015, 12:30–12:45, EMH 225
Exploring the properties of individual nanomagnets: EMCD on FePt nanocubes — •Sebastian Schneider1,2, Darius Pohl1, Thomas Schachinger3, Stefan Löffler3, Peter Schattschneider3,4, and Bernd Rellinghaus1 — 1IFW Dresden, Institute for Metallic Materials, P.O. Box 270116, D-01171 Dresden, Germany — 2TU Dresden, Institut fur Festkörperphysik, D-01062 Dresden, Germany — 3Vienna University of Technology, USTEM, A-1040 Vienna, Austria — 4Vienna University of Technology, Institute of Solid State Physics, A-1040 Vienna, Austria
Electron magnetic chiral dichroism (EMCD) is the electron wave analogue of X-ray magnetic circular dichroism (XMCD). It offers the possibility to study magnetic properties at the nanoscale in a transmission electron microscope (TEM). In a ‘classical’ EMCD setup, the sample is illuminated with a plane electron wave and acts as a beam splitter. Although this method is meanwhile well established, only very few EMCD spectra were so far obtained from individual nanoparticles. We report on EMCD measurements on individual FePt nanocubes with a size of roughly 30 nm and compare our experimental findings with simulations. The dichroic signals at the L3 and L2 edges are expected to be as small as 10 % of the total scattering intensity. Our experiments are supported by simulations utilizing the WIEN2k program package, based on which FePt cubes with a thickness, that should provide maximal EMCD signals, are chosen for the experiments. The experiments indeed reveal a small but reproducible dichroic signal that agrees well with the results of the theoretical calculations.