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last update 21/11/2009
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The Nanospectroscopy beamline operates two end-stations equipped with x-ray photo-emission and low energy electron microscopes. These instruments can reach lateral resolution of few tens nm, and provide a unique combination of complementary imaging and diffraction methods with structural, chemical and magnetic sensitivity. They allow a multi-technique investigation (energy filtered XPEEM, XMCD- and XMLD-PEEM, LEEM, micro-LEED, micro-ARPES) of surfaces, interfaces, thin films, nanostructures and the processes thereby occurring. Research applications are mainly targeted to surface and material sciences.

Research update

XMCD-PEEM magnetic imaging beyond domains: internal degree of freedom in domain walls

The manipulation of the internal configuration of domain walls in magnetic vortices occurring in lithographically-defined magnetic dots has become a subject of active research. Recent work on magnetic vortices occurring in lithographically-defined magnetic dots, i.e. the one-dimensional equivalent of the usual two-dimensional domain walls, showed that the vortex core can be reversed by static fields or spin-polarized currents. These studies proved that two degrees of freedom can be controlled independently in the so-called vortex flux-closure state: 1) the in-plane chirality of magnetization and 2) the polarization of the vortex core. We went one step further and demonstrated the manipulation of a third degree of freedom in one single dot, the so-called Neel cap, 50 nm wide magnetic surface features occurring atop and below the Bloch wall of the flux-closure state of elongated dots.
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F. Cheynis, A. Masseboeuf, O. Fruchart, N. Rougemaille, J. C. Toussaint, R. Belkhou, P. Bayle-Guillemaud, and A. Marty, Phys. Rev. Lett. 102, 107201 (2009).
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The next deadline for proposal submission for beamtime allocation from July 1 to December 21, 2011 will be March 15th, 2011 at 4:30 pm (MET). All proposals requiring XPEEM will be performed using the SPELEEM microscope in operation on the beamline first branch.

In 2003, the French CNRS, the SOLEIL national synchrotron and Elettra estabilshed a research agreement and collaboration that brought SOLEIL's X-PEEM microscope to the second branch of the Nanospectroscopy beamline. Since then, numerous French and European research teams successfully exploited the capabilites of this insturment. In early 2010 the microscope has returned to SOLEIL, where it will be installed on the soft x-ray microscopy beamline, to be open to users in 2011.