Nanospectroscopy highlights

Imaging magnetic domains is vital to research aimed at understanding magnetism and harnessing its properties towards deliverable technological goals. Most efforts to date have been focused on a rich variety of ferromagnetic (FM) systems and the processes thereby occurring. Despite the development of several imaging methods that allow us to image magnetism on thin films and surfaces, the elusive nature of net magnetic moment in antiferromagnic (AFM) materials still poses serious experimental difficulties. Here, we show the power of a laboratory-based approach for imaging surface AFM domains, based on using coherently exchange-scattered unpolarized electrons in a standard low energy electron microscope (LEEM) . Our results are discussed in comparison with one of the most frequently employed magnetic surface imaging techniques, X-ray Magnetic Linear Dichroism

Photoemission Electron Microscopy (XMLD-PEEM). This method promises to widen the application of AFM imaging to a broader class of thin films and nanostructures, providing the advantage of enhanced surface sensitivity. Most importantly, it demonstrates to grant access to important details of the antiferromagnetic structure such as domain walls in ultra thin films, of which many aspects are still unexplored.

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Surface antiferromagnetic domain imaging using low-energy unpolarized electrons;
K.S.R. Menon, S. Mandal, J. Das, T.O. Menteş, M.Á. Niño, A. Locatelli, and R. Belkhou;
Phys. Rev. B 84, 132402 (2011);
doi: 10.1103/PhysRevB.84.132402.