Dynamical diffraction effects in STEM orbital angular momentum resolved electron energy-loss magnetic chiral dichroism

Abstract

In this paper, we explore the properties of dynamical diffraction coefficients in orbital angular momentum resolved electron energy-loss magnetic chiral dichroism spectra, in a scanning transmission electron microscopy setup. We demonstrate that for basic zone axis geometries with fourfold or threefold symmetry the coefficients are constrained to have simplified forms. By exploiting these properties, we show how a dichroism spectrum accessible using this technique is only weakly dependent on sample thickness and, more generally, on dynamical diffraction effects. Our results indicate that in such cases it is possible to determine the orbital and spin components of atomic magnetic moments approximately from experimental spectra without the need for additional dynamical diffraction calculations.