Shining light on magnetic microstructures

The increasing interest in micro- and nano-magnetism requires new instruments to examine the collective behavior of laterally structured ferromagnetic (FM) thin films. We demonstrate the possibility to extend the established Bragg-MOKE technique, which measures the Kerr effect on off-specular diffracted polarized laser light to soft x-rays. The shorter wavelength, which allows investigating smaller structures, and the element selectivity of the resonant scattering make soft x-rays an attractive tool for studying patterned ferromagnetic heterostructures. We illustrate this technique on permalloy islands and on exchange biased iron islands on antiferromagnetic CoO as two model systems. The results so far are in agreement with other experimental techniques and show the feasibility of off-specular resonant magnetic soft x-ray scattering.