0000000000048464

AUTHOR

C. Westphal

Surface hysteresis curves of Fe(110) and Fe(100) crystals in ultrahigh vacuum — evidence of adsorbate influences

Abstract We have investigated hysteresis curves of silicon-stabilized Fe(100) and Fe(110) crystals using Polarized Secondary Electron Emission (PSEE) for surface magnetization processes and Magneto-Optical Kerr Effect (MOKE) for bulk hysteresis curves. In particular, the influence of adsorbates (oxygen and sulphur) and surface roughness on the magnetization reversal has been studied. For surface hysteresis curves we found adsorbate-induced reductions of coercive force of up to 50%; the bulk hysteresis curves showed significantly smaller deviations. Similar changes were caused by surface disorder on an atomic scale induced by ion bombardment. The results agree qualitatively with a previous e…

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Circular Dichroism in Photoemission from Nonmagnetic, Low- Z Solids: A Conspicuous Effect of the Photon Spin

A new phenomenon has been observed in solid-state photoemission with circularly polarized light. Its outward appearance is similar to the circular dichroism in photoabsorption. For special observation geometries, large photoelectron intensity asymmetries arise upon reversal of the photon helicity. The effect is not based on spin-orbit interaction, as is demonstrated by the example of photoemission from graphite (Z = 6). Similar asymmetries are expected for all single-crystal solids thus opening up a new class of experiments providing new tests for photoemission theories. Detailed information on the dynamics of photoexcitation of a solid can be gained, as discussed in terms of a simple orbit…

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Circular dichroism in x-ray photoemission from core levels of nonmagnetic species

Circular dichroism in the angular distribution of photoelectrons (CDAD) has been observed in core-level photoemission from spherically symmetric initial states of nonmagnetic species utilizing circularly polarized soft-x-ray radiation from BESSY. Up to now, CDAD was predicted and observed only for aligned initial states. The data for oriented CO molecules prove that circular x-ray dichroism in photoemission from core levels is a general phenomenon that is not restricted to ferromagnets. High asymmetries of 50% suggest future applications as an effective circular x-ray analyzer.

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Orientation and substrate interaction of adsorbed CO and NO molecules probed by circular dichroism in the angular distribution of photoelectrons.

The sensitivity and utility of circular dichroism in the angular distribution of photoelectrons (CDAD) as a probe of molecular orientation is demonstrated for adsorbed CO and NO molecules. A comparison between measured CDAD spectra and calculated values for spatially oriented CO and NiCO clearly confirms the well-known perpendicular adsorption for CO on Ni(100), whereas for CO adsorbed on Fe(100) a tilted adsorption geometry was found. For NO/Ni(100) and for NO on the oxygen-preadsorbed Ni(100) surface, an average tilt angle of α=40±10° was observed. In the case of the oxygen-preadsorbed Ni(100) surface, a higher fraction of NO molecules was found to be in a tilted orientation than on the c…

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