Spin-polarized photoelectron diffraction: a probe of short-range magnetic order

Abstract

Spin-polarized photoelectron diffraction (SPPD) is a unique probe for obtaining surface sensitive near-neighbor magnetic order information in magnetic materials, including antiferromagnets. A brief review on the principles of x-ray photoelectron diffraction and SPPD is given, followed by a summary of results on Mn containing compounds obtained by the author and other co-workers. Variations in the diffraction pattern of the dominant Mn 3s multiplet, as a function of temperature, produced abrupt changes in the spin asymmetries, of up to 20% for KMnF 3 and MnO, at temperatures well above their Néel temperatures. There also appears to be a strong dependence in the spin asymmetry on emission direction. Complete corroboration of the Mn 3s spin asymmetry curves from MnO is found in the Mn 3p curves and good agreement is found with spin-polarized single-scattering cluster calculations.