Eur. Phys. J. Special Topics 169, 175-180 (2009)
https://doi.org/10.1140/epjst/e2009-00989-4

NiFe₂O₄ and Fe₃O₄ studied by XMCD and resonant photoemission

¹ Laboratoire de Physique des Métaux et des Surfaces, Université de Cergy-Pontoise, 5 Mail Gay-Lussac, 95031 Cergy-Pontoise, France
² Laboratoire de Chimie Physique–Matière et Rayonnement (UMR 7614), Université Pierre et Marie Curie, 11 rue P. et M. Curie, 75231 Paris Cedex 05, France
³ MAX-lab, Lunds Universitet, PO Box 118, 221 00 Lund, Sweden
⁴ Department of Applied Physics, Hanyang University, Ansan, Kyunggi-Do, 426-791, Korea
⁵ Department of Physics, University of California, 1 Shields Avenue, Davis, CA 95616-8677, USA and Materials Sciences Division, Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory, 1 Cyclotron Road, Berkeley, CA, 94720-8196, USA
⁶ Laboratoire CRISMAT (UMR 6508), ENSICAEN, Université de Caen, CNRS, 6 boulevard du Maréchal Juin, 14050 Caen Cedex 4, France
⁷ Laboratoire de Physique de la Matière Condensée (FRE 2686), CNRS/ONERA, 2 avenue Edouard Belin, 31400 Toulouse, France
⁸ Consiglio Nazionale delle Ricerche, Istituto di Struttura della Materia, via Fosso del Cavaliere 100, 00133 Roma, Italy
⁹ Synchrotron SOLEIL, L'Orme des Merisiers, Saint-Aubin, BP. 48, 91192 Gif-sur-Yvette Cedex, France

Abstract

X-ray magnetic circular dichroism and resonant photoemission at the Fe and Ni L_2,3 edges have been used to investigate the electronic structure of NiFe₂O₄ (NFO) thin films. The results, when compared to those obtained on Fe₃O₄, indicate that in a 12 nm NFO film the Ni atoms occupy mainly B sites, as in bulk NFO, and that a decrease in the thickness of the film results in a modification of the nickel hybridization.