Resonant X-ray diffraction: Basic theoretical principles

Abstract

We present the main steps governing the theory of resonant X-ray diffraction (RXD). We focus on the derivation of the anomalous scattering amplitude from perturbation theory and starting from the low-energy expansion of the Dirac Hamiltonian. We give the main ingredients of the multipolar expansion in term of electric and magnetic transitions. We also show the expansion in terms of scattering tensors of the material. We end by giving the RXD formula necessary to simulate in practice this spectroscopy. © 2012 EDP Sciences, Springer-Verlag.