XMCD under pressure at the Fe K edge on the energy dispersive beamline of the ESRF

Abstract

The present paper demonstrates the feasibility of X-ray Absorption Spectroscopy (XAS) and X-ray Magnetic Circular Dichroism (XMCD) at high pressure at the Fe-K edge on the ID24 energy dispersive beamline of the ESRF. In 3d transition metals, performing experiments at the hard X-ray K-edge rather than at the magnetically interesting soft X-ray L-edges represents, the only way to access the high pressure regime obtainable with Diamond Anvil Cells. The simultaneous availability of a local structure (XAS) and of a magnetic (XMCD) probe on the sample in identical thermodynamical conditions is essential to study correlations between local structural and magnetic properties. We briefly summarize the state of the art theoretical understanding of K-edge XMCD data, then illustrate the setup of beamline ID24 for high pressure XMCD experiments and underline the conditions required to perform measurements at the K-edges of 3d transition metals. Finally, we present two examples of recent high pressure results at the Fe-K edge in pure Fe and Fe3O4 powder.