Paving the Way to Ultra-High-Resolution Resonant Inelastic X-ray Scattering with the SIX Beamline at NSLS-II

Abstract

Many of the emergent properties in quantum materials manifest themselves as low-energy collective excitations involving entwined charge, spin, orbital, and lattice degrees of freedom. These properties can lead to a number of exotic phenomena, such as high-temperature superconductivity, colossal magneto-resistance, multiferroism, and topological insulating phases. Additionally, as these phenomena are now becoming a new frontier for technology, there is an increased urgency to improve the experimental identifi cation of the underlying collective excitations. In a little over two decades, resonant inelastic X-ray scattering (RIXS) has proven itself as an indispensable probe of these low-energy excitations, which it detects in an element-, orbital-, and momentum-resolved fashion.