This work presents a detailed analysis of the performance of X-ray magnetic circular dichroism photoemission electron microscopy (XMCD-PEEM) as a tool for vector reconstruction of magnetization. For this, 360° domain wall ring structures which form in a synthetic antiferromagnet are chosen as the model to conduct the quantitative analysis. An assessment is made of how the quality of the results is affected depending on the number of projections that are involved in the reconstruction process, as well as their angular distribution.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFIn multilayers of magnetic thin films with perpendicular anisotropy, domain walls can take on hybrid configurations in the vertical direction which minimize the domain wall energy, with Néel walls in the top or bottom layers and Bloch walls in some central layers. These types of textures are theoretically predicted, but their observation has remained challenging until recently, with only a few techniques capable of realizing a three dimensional characterization of their magnetization distribution. Here we perform a field dependent X-ray resonant magnetic scattering measurements on magnetic multilayers exploiting circular dichroism contrast to investigate such structures.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFWith the continuing interest in new magnetic materials for sensor devices and data storage applications, the community needs reliable and sensitive tools for the characterization of such materials. Soft X-rays tuned to elemental absorption edges are a depth and element sensitive probe of magnetic structure at the nanoscale, and scattering measurements have the potential to provide 3D magnetic structural information of the material. In this work we develop a methodology in transmission geometry that allows one to probe the spatial distribution of the magnetization along the different layers of magnetic heterostructures.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFArcheological ceramic paste material typically consists of a mix of a clay matrix and various millimeter and sub-millimeter sized mineral inclusions. Micro X-ray fluorescence (XRF) is a standard compositional classification tool and in this work we propose and demonstrate an improved fluorescence map processing protocol where the mineral inclusions are automatically separated from the clay matrix to allow independent statistical analysis of the two parts. Application of this protocol allowed us to enhance the discrimination between different ceramic shards compared with the standard procedure of working with only the spatially averaged elemental concentrations.
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