Strong K-edge Magnetic Circular Dichroism Observed in Photon-in-Photon-out Spectroscopy

A large enhancement of the x-ray magnetic circular dichroism is observed at the iron K absorption preedge of magnetite. This is achieved by performing resonant inelastic x-ray scattering (RIXS) experiments with a 2p hole in the final state of the second-order optical process. We measured and calculated the full 1s2p RIXS planes for opposite helicities of the incoming circularly polarized x rays. The crystal field multiplet calculations show that the enhancement arises from 2p-3d Coulomb repulsions and 2p and 3d spin-orbit coupling. The observed magnitude of the RIXS magnetic circular dichroism effect is similar to 16%. This opens up new opportunities for a broad range of research fields allowing for truly bulk-sensitive, element-, and site-selective measurements of 3d transition metal magnetic moments and their ordering using hard x-ray photons.