Large magnetic circular dichroism in resonant inelastic x-ray scattering at the Mn L -edge of Mn-Zn ferrite

Abstract

We report resonant inelastic x-ray scattering (RIXS) excited by circularly polarized x rays on Mn-Zn ferrite at the Mn L2,3 resonances. We demonstrate that crystal-field excitations, as expected for localized systems, dominate the RIXS spectra and thus their dichroic asymmetry cannot be interpreted in terms of spin-resolved partial density of states, which has been the standard approach for RIXS dichroism. We observe large dichroic RIXS at the L2 resonance which we attribute to the absence of metallic core hole screening in the insulating Mn ferrite. On the other hand, reduced L3 -RIXS dichroism is interpreted as an effect of longer scattering time that enables spin-lattice core hole relaxation via magnons and phonons occurring on a femtosecond time scale. © 2006 The American Physical Society.