Rare-earth orbital contribution to the Fe<i>K</i>-edge x-ray magnetic circular dichroism in rare-earth transition-metal intermetallic compounds

Abstract

We present a systematic x-ray magnetic circular dichroism (XMCD) study performed at the Fe K-edge of the $\mathrm{R}{\mathrm{Fe}}_{11}\mathrm{Ti}$ intermetallic materials $(\mathrm{R},$ rare earth). We have investigated the contribution of the rare-earth sublattice to the dichroism of the transition metal. The existence of a magnetic contribution of the rare earth has been identified and isolated from the whole spectrum. This contribution is found to be related to the rare-earth moment even when one is looking at the Fe K-edge absorption. The contribution of the rare earths to the total XMCD signal has been extracted for both pure and hydride derivatives, showing the decrease of the rare-earth magnetic moment upon hydrogen absorption.