Multimodal reconstruction of TbCo thin film structure with Basyeian analysis of polarised neutron reflectivity

Abstract

We implemented the Bayesian analysis to the polarised neutron reflectivity data. Reflectivity data from a magnetic TbCo thin film structure was studied using the bundle of a Monte-Carlo Markov-chain algorithm, likelihood estimation, and error modeling. By utilizing the Bayesian analysis, we were able to investigate the uniqueness of the solution beyond reconstructing the magnetic and structure parameters. This approach has demonstrated its expedience as several probable reconstructions were found (the multimodality case) concerning the isotopic composition of the surface cover layer. Such multimodal reconstruction emphasizes the importance of rigorous data analysis instead of the direct data fitting approach, especially in the case of poor statistically conditioned data, typical for neutron reflectivity experiments. The analysis details and the discussion on multimodality are in this article.