Imada, S., Suga, S., Kuch, W. and Kirschner, J.

Until two decades ago, magnetic materials were only known to the public as permanent magnet and magnetic tape. Now, they are being used not only in personal hard disks and mini-disks but also in memories in next-generation computers. Further development of the infromation technology will need further increase in the storage density and density of circuits in such devices. It will hence become more and more necessary to be able to ''see'' magnetic microstructures. The spin of electrons can be detected by using circularly polarized light. Recently, element-specific microscopic study of magnetic microstructures has become possible by the combination of photoelectron emission microscopy (PEEM) and magnetic circular dichroism in soft x-ray photoabsorption. In our study in SPring-8, we investigated the magnetization processes of magnetic microstructures and the interlayer exchange coupling in epitaxial magnetic multilayers. We review this study and future prospects.

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