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.