Abstract

We put forward a new presentation of the theory of off-specular scattering of polarized neutrons from magnetic multilayers within the distorted wave Born approximation developed by one of the authors. In this presentation, a clear separation is made between (1) the structure factors, model dependent, and (2) the optical coefficients and the efficiencies of the polarizer and the analyzer, model independent. It therefore permits an easy plugging in of any particular model of structural and magnetic correlations. For a test, we show simulations of off-specular scattering from magnetic domains in multilayers exhibiting anti-ferromagnetic coupling, a situation encountered in the literature.

Author Keywords: Magnetic thin films; Magnetoelectronics; Off-specular scattering of polarized neutrons

PACS classification codes: 75.25.+z; 75.70.Kw; 75.75.+a

Article Outline

1. Introduction

2. Off-specular scattering of polarized neutrons in the DWBA

2.1. The Hamiltonian

2.2. The DWBA

2.3. The reference states and the reflectivity

2.4. Off-specular scattering

3. Magnetic domains

4. Conclusion

Appendix A. Operators of reflection and transmission amplitudes

References

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Fig. 1. Model of domains in a multilayer with anti-ferromagnetic coupling between the ferromagnetic layers. See the text for more details.

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Fig. 2. (a) Simulations of spin-flip diffuse scattering of polarized neutrons from an multilayer exhibiting anti-ferromagnetic coupling, with magnetic domains. In the top example, the directions of incident polarization and analysis lie along the y-axis of (b). The same geometry was considered in [9]. In the bottom one, spin-flip scattering is also considered, but the directions of polarization and analysis lie along the z-axis. Intensities are displayed on a logarithmic scale. (, =1 m, =30°, =0 and m₀ very big with respect to the number of layers.)

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