Experimental conditions and data evaluation forquantitative EMCD measurements in the TEM

• The recently demonstrated technique electron energy-loss spectroscopy (EMCD) [I)opens new routes for characterization of magnetic materials using transmission electronmicroscopy. The technique enables quantitative measurements of orbital to spinmagnetic moments with element specificity, according to the recently derived sum rules[2). Electron energy-loss spectra is obtained at well defined scattering geometries, seefigure I.The principle of the technique having been demonstrated, further progress isrequired to obtain reliable quantitative information about the magnetic properties of thesample. By using energy filtered diffraction patterns, the distribution of the EM CDsignal in reciprocal space is obtained. The ava,lability of these data sets from a fullreciprocal plane allows for the optimisation of the data treatment. We study the theinfluence of experimental geometries on the EMCD signal and optimise data analysis ofthe probed reciprocal plane. This is essential to obtain correct and reliable magneticinformation. Especially normalization, signal to noise optimization and consideration ofthe entire edge intensities are important. The data cubes consisting of the reciprocalplane and energy-loss were acquired using a FEI Tecnai F30ST microscope equippedwith a Gatan GIF2002 spectrometer. In figure 2, two spectra that were extracted at theP+ and P- positions are shown. The experimental results are compared with calculationsof the EMCD signal for a thin Fe film, showing very good agreement.I. P. Schattschneider, S. Rubino, C. H~bert, J. Rusz, J. Kune~, P Novak, E. Carlino,M. Fabrizioli, G. Panaccione and G. Rossi, Nature 441 (2006), p. 486-488.2. J. Rusz, O. Eriksson, P. Novak and P.M. Oppeneer, Phys. Rev. B 76 (2007),060408(R).

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NATURVETENSKAP  -- Fysik (hsv//swe)

NATURAL SCIENCES  -- Physical Sciences (hsv//eng)

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Physics

Fysik

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