Laser induced threshold photoemission magnetic circular dichroism and its application to photoelectron microscope

Highlights: ► Threshold photoemission magnetic circular dichroism results are presented. ► The enhanced MCD contrast is used to observe magnetic domains by PEEM. ► Magnetization axis, probing depth and angle dependence of MCD are described. ► Laser based measurements in this method expand the possibility of PEEM. -- Abstract: This work enlightens the threshold photoemission magnetic circular dichroism (MCD) and its adaption on photoemission electron microscopy (PEEM) using lasers. MCD is a simple and efficient way to investigate magnetic properties since it does not need any spin analyzers with low efficiency, and thus the MCD related techniques have developed to observe magnetic domains. Usually, MCD in a total yield measurement in the valence band with weak spin–orbit coupling (SOC) excited by low photon energy (hν≤ 6 eV) does not compete with the X-ray magnetic circular dichroism (XMCD) with strong SOC. XMCD PEEM observation of magnetic domains has been successfully established while MCD PEEM derived from valence bands has not been. However, using angle and energy resolved photoelectron, valence band MCD provides large asymmetry similar to that by XMCD. Threshold measurement of photoelectron in a total electron yield procedure can take advantage of the measurement of photoelectrons with a limited angle and energy mode. This restriction of the photoelectron makes the threshold MCD technique an efficient way to get magnetic information and gives more than 10% asymmetry for Ni/Cu(0 0 1), which is comparable to that obtained by angle resolved photoemission. Thus the threshold MCD technique is a suitable method to observe magnetic domains by PEEM. For threshold MCD, incident angle dependence and high sensitivity to out-of-plane magnetized films compared with in-plane ones are discussed. Ultrashort pulse lasers make it feasible to measure two photon photoemission MCD combined with PEEM, where resonant excitation has a possibility to enhance dichroic asymmetry. Recent results for valence band magnetic dichroism PEEM are presented.