X-ray magnetic circular dichroism at the iron<mml:math xmlns:mml="http://www.w3.org/1998/Math/MathML" display="inline"><mml:mi>K</mml:mi></mml:math>edge in rare-earth-transition-metal intermetallics: Experimental probe of the rare-earth magnetic moment

Abstract

We present a systematic x-ray magnetic-circular-dichroism (XMCD) study performed at the Fe $K$ edge on the ${R}_{2}{\mathrm{Fe}}_{14}\mathrm{B}$ series ($R=\mathrm{rare}\mathrm{earth}\mathrm{and}\mathrm{Y}$). The magnetic XMCD signal has been identified as due to the addition of two components associated with the magnetic contributions from the iron and the rare-earth sublattices. The contribution of the rare-earth sublattice has been extracted from the total XMCD signal. The integrated XMCD signal of the $R$ component is proven to be directly correlated with the $R$ magnetic moment.