| Author(s): |
S Apell; David R. Penn; P Johansson; |
| Title: |
Circularly Polarized Light Emission in Scanning Tunneling Microscopy of Magnetic Systems |
| Published: |
January 01, 2000 |
| Abstract: |
Light is produced when a scanning tunneling microscopy is used to probe a metal surface. Recent experiments on cobalt utilizing a tungsten tip found that the light is circularly polarized; the sense of circular polarization depends on the direction of the sample magnetization, and the degree of polarization is of order 10%. This raises the possibility of constructing a magnetic microscope with very good spatial resolution. We present a theory of this effect for iron and cobalt and find a degree of polarization of order 0.1%. This is in disagreement with the experiments on cobalt as well as previous theoretical work which found order of magnitude agreement with the experimental results. However, a recent experiment on iron showed 0.0 ± 2%. We predict that the use of a silver tip would increase the degree of circular polarization for a range of photon energies. |
| Citation: |
Physical Review B (Condensed Matter and Materials Physics) |
| Volume: |
61 |
| Issue: |
5 |
| Pages: |
pp. 3534 - 3545 |
| Keywords: |
circularly polarized light;light emission;magnetic substrate;microscopy;scanning tunneling microscope |
| Research Areas: |
Scanning tunneling spectroscopy (STS) |
