International Postdoctoral Fellows Program: Magnetic Properties of Metallic Multilayers

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This award is under the International Postdoctoral Fellows Program, which enables U.S. scientists and engineers to conduct three to twelve months of research at foreign centers of proven excellence. The program's awards provide opportunities for joint research, and the use of unique or complementary facilities, expertise and experimental conditions abroad. This award will support a twelve-month postdoctoral research visit by Dr. Susan Mini to the Universite Paris-Sud to work with Dr. Alain Fontaine. The aim of their research will be to study the magnetic properties of metallic multilayers using magnetic circular x-ray dichroism spectroscopy (MCXD). The importance of this new spectroscopic technique is that each atomic species can be probed selectively. MCXD is a high energy spectroscopic method which has been used for the study of localized and itinerant magnetism in ordered magnetic systems. It is a powerful tool for the study of the local magnetic properties because it takes advantage of the selectivity of x-ray absorption spectroscopy and the polarization properties of synchrotron radiation. Because it can selectively probe each core orbital of each atomic species in a material, the magnetic contribution of each species in a multilayer may be deduced. Multilayers of interest include Fe/Pd systems because the Fe-Pd(l00) interface appears to experience minimal mixing and unlike many other systems the Fe appears to induce a magnet moment in the interfacial Pd atomic layer ıC.Liu et al., J.Appl. Phys 67, 5758 '90!. Since MCXD is element specific, the magnetic moment contributions of the Fe and Pd may be observed separately. MCXD can be used to address specific problems concerning the magnetism of multilayer interfaces. The award recommendation provides funds to cover international travel, a stipend for twelve months, and $1,000 for travel to Grenoble to conduct experiments and a small allowance for language training.