102 research outputs found
-Electron Ferromagnetism in Metal Free Carbon Probed by Soft X-Ray Dichroism
Elemental carbon represents a fundamental building block of matter and the
possibility of ferromagnetic order in carbon attracted widespread attention.
However, the origin of magnetic order in such a light element is only poorly
understood and has puzzled researchers. We present a spectromicroscopy study at
room temperature of proton irradiated metal free carbon using the elemental and
chemical specificity of x-ray magnetic circular dichroism (XMCD). We
demonstrate that the magnetic order in the investigated system originates only
from the carbon -electron system.Comment: 10 pages 3 color figure
The role of hydrogen in room-temperature ferromagnetism at graphite surfaces
We present a x-ray dichroism study of graphite surfaces that addresses the
origin and magnitude of ferromagnetism in metal-free carbon. We find that, in
addition to carbon states, also hydrogen-mediated electronic states
exhibit a net spin polarization with significant magnetic remanence at room
temperature. The observed magnetism is restricted to the top 10 nm of
the irradiated sample where the actual magnetization reaches emu/g
at room temperature. We prove that the ferromagnetism found in metal-free
untreated graphite is intrinsic and has a similar origin as the one found in
proton bombarded graphite.Comment: 10 pages, 5 figures, 1 table, submitted to New Journal of Physic
Magnetic versus crystal field linear dichroism in NiO thin films
We have detected strong dichroism in the Ni x-ray absorption
spectra of monolayer NiO films. The dichroic signal appears to be very similar
to the magnetic linear dichroism observed for thicker antiferromagnetic NiO
films. A detailed experimental and theoretical analysis reveals, however, that
the dichroism is caused by crystal field effects in the monolayer films, which
is a non trivial effect because the high spin Ni ground state is not
split by low symmetry crystal fields. We present a practical experimental
method for identifying the independent magnetic and crystal field contributions
to the linear dichroic signal in spectra of NiO films with arbitrary
thicknesses and lattice strains. Our findings are also directly relevant for
high spin and systems such as LaFeO, FeO,
VO, LaCrO, CrO, and Mn manganate thin films
Emitter-site selective photoelectron circular dichroism of trifluoromethyloxirane
The angle-resolved inner-shell photoionization of R-trifluoromethyloxirane,
C3H3F3O, is studied experimentally and theoretically. Thereby, we investigate
the photoelectron circular dichroism (PECD) for nearly-symmetric O 1s and F 1s
electronic orbitals, which are localized on different molecular sites. The
respective dichroic and angular distribution parameters
are measured at the photoelectron kinetic energies from 1 to 16 eV by using
variably polarized synchrotron radiation and velocity map imaging spectroscopy.
The present experimental results are in good agreement with the outcome of ab
initio electronic structure calculations. We report a sizable chiral asymmetry
of up to about 9% for the K-shell photoionization of oxygen atom.
For the individual fluorine atoms, the present calculations predict asymmetries
of similar size. However, being averaged over all fluorine atoms, it drops down
to about 2%, as also observed in the present experiment. Our study demonstrates
a strong emitter- and site-sensitivity of PECD in the one-photon inner-shell
ionization of this chiral molecule
Study of the Negative Magneto-Resistance of Single Proton-Implanted Lithium-Doped ZnO Microwires
The magneto-transport properties of single proton-implanted ZnO and of
Li(7\%)-doped ZnO microwires have been studied. The as-grown microwires were
highly insulating and not magnetic. After proton implantation the Li(7\%) doped
ZnO microwires showed a non monotonous behavior of the negative
magneto-resistance (MR) at temperature above 150 K. This is in contrast to the
monotonous NMR observed below 50 K for proton-implanted ZnO. The observed
difference in the transport properties of the wires is related to the amount of
stable Zn vacancies created at the near surface region by the proton
implantation and Li doping. The magnetic field dependence of the resistance
might be explained by the formation of a magnetic/non magnetic heterostructure
in the wire after proton implantation.Comment: 6 pages with 5 figure
Magnetic switching in granular FePt layers promoted by near-field laser enhancement
Light-matter interaction at the nanoscale in magnetic materials is a topic of
intense research in view of potential applications in next-generation
high-density magnetic recording. Laser-assisted switching provides a pathway
for overcoming the material constraints of high-anisotropy and high-packing
density media, though much about the dynamics of the switching process remains
unexplored. We use ultrafast small-angle x-ray scattering at an x-ray
free-electron laser to probe the magnetic switching dynamics of FePt
nanoparticles embedded in a carbon matrix following excitation by an optical
femtosecond laser pulse. We observe that the combination of laser excitation
and applied static magnetic field, one order of magnitude smaller than the
coercive field, can overcome the magnetic anisotropy barrier between "up" and
"down" magnetization, enabling magnetization switching. This magnetic switching
is found to be inhomogeneous throughout the material, with some individual FePt
nanoparticles neither switching nor demagnetizing. The origin of this behavior
is identified as the near-field modification of the incident laser radiation
around FePt nanoparticles. The fraction of not-switching nanoparticles is
influenced by the heat flow between FePt and a heat-sink layer
Two-component approach for thermodynamic properties in diluted magnetic semiconductors
We examine the feasibility of a simple description of Mn ions in III-V
diluted magnetic semiconductors (DMSs) in terms of two species (components),
motivated by the expectation that the Mn-hole exchange couplings are widely
distributed, expecially for low Mn concentrations. We find, using distributions
indicated by recent numerical mean field studies, that the thermodynamic
properties (magnetization, susceptibility, and specific heat) cannot be fit by
a single coupling as in a homogeneous model, but can be fit well by a
two-component model with a temperature dependent number of ``strongly'' and
``weakly'' coupled spins. This suggests that a two-component description may be
a minimal model for the interpretation of experimental measurements of
thermodynamic quantities in III-V DMS systems.Comment: 10 pages, 9 figures, 1 new figure, substantial revision
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