Soft-x-ray magnetic circular dichroism at the<mml:math xmlns:mml="http://www.w3.org/1998/Math/MathML" display="inline"><mml:mrow><mml:msub><mml:mrow><mml:mi mathvariant="italic">L</mml:mi></mml:mrow><mml:mrow><mml:mn>2</mml:mn><mml:mo>,</mml:mo><mml:mn>3</mml:mn></mml:mrow></mml:msub></mml:mrow></mml:math>edges of nickel

Abstract

Magnetic circular dichroism (MCD) has been observed at the ${\mathit{L}}_{2,3}$ absorption edges of ferromagnetic nickel by use of circularly-polarized soft-x-ray synchrotron radiation. The MCD intensity ratio between the ${\mathit{L}}_{2}$ and ${\mathit{L}}_{3}$ edges is found to differ appreciably from that predicted by a simple exchange-split-valence-band model. Fine MCD features, imperceptible in the absorption spectra, are also observed, and a tentative interpretation is given. This work, demonstrating the feasibility of MCD measurements in the soft-x-ray region, provides a new approach to study 3d and 4f ferromagnetic systems with their respective dipole-permitted 2p\ensuremath{\rightarrow}3d and 3d\ensuremath{\rightarrow}4f transitions.