Interpretation of Magnetic Circular Dichroism of X-ray Emission Spectra

We have measured the dependence of the magnetic circular dichroism (MCD) of the X-ray emission spectra (XES) on the temperature and incident angle for a Gd thin film. The energy of the incident photon for the XES was 138.25 eV, which corresponded to the resonant excitation to the 8 D 9/2 intermediate state. The dependence of the observed MCD on the temperature and incident angle was quite different from that of the magnetic moment estimated with a SQUID magnetometer. By considering the reflection, saturation effect, self-absorption effect and magnetic anisotropy of the thin film, the agreement of the two behaviors was considerably improved. This result shows that the revisions of the MCD of the XES are extremely important for the quantitative estimation of the magnetic moment from the MCD of the XES.