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Enhanced magnetic dichroism in dark-field UV photoemission electron microscopy

Maximilian Paleschke1, David Huber1, Friederike Wührl1, Cheng-Tien Chiang2, Frank O. Schumann3, Jürgen Henk1, and Wolf Widdra1,*

  • *Contact author: wolf.widdra@physik.uni-halle.de
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Phys. Rev. B 112, 054411 – Published 4 August, 2025

DOI: https://doi.org/10.1103/klc4-lk7g

Abstract

Photoemission electron microscopy (PEEM) has evolved into an indispensable tool for structural and magnetic characterization of surfaces at the nanometer scale. In strong contrast to synchrotron-radiation-based x-ray PEEM as a leading method for element-specific magnetic properties via magnetic circular dichroism (MCD), laboratory ultraviolet (UV) PEEM has seen limited application with much smaller dichroic effects for in-plane magnetization. Here, we introduce dark-field PEEM as an approach to enhance MCD contrast in threshold photoemission, enabling efficient MCD imaging with significantly enhanced contrast by an order of magnitude for Fe(001). This advancement paves the way for MCD imaging on femtosecond timescales using modern lasers. The experimental results will be quantitatively benchmarked against advanced relativistic photoemission calculations.

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Outline

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Phys. Rev. B 112, 054411– Published 4 August, 2025
  • Received 7 September 2024
  • Revised 15 May 2025
  • Accepted 14 July 2025
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Published by the American Physical Society under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International license. Further distribution of this work must maintain attribution to the author(s) and the published article's title, journal citation, and DOI.

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