New Developments in Magnetic Coherent Diffractive Imaging

Magnetism at the nanoscale is central to understanding emergent complexity in transition metal oxides and engineered rare earth-transition metal multilayers, and in designing new magnetic data storage and spintronic technology. We study magnetism at the nanoscale here using coherent x-ray diffractive imaging (CXDI), which is a technique with potentially wavelength-limited spatial resolution that can probe deeply beyond surfaces, and potentially on ultrafast timescales using new x-ray laser sources. We look at the domain evolution vs. applied magnetic field over the whole hysteresis loop of a ferrimagnetic GdFe multilayer film using x-rays resonant at the Gd M5 edge for domain contrast. We explore complimentary and return point memory by imaging the multilayer over a large field of view. We lastly explore experimental and algorithmic improvements in CXDI using dichroism as contrast mechanism, as well as new opportunities for ultra-fast, single-shot imaging using a variation on the CXDI approach.