The XMaS beamline at ESRF: instrumental developments and high-resolution diffraction studies.

The beamline, which is situated on a bending magnet at ESRF, comprises a unique combination of instrumentation for high-resolution and magnetic single-crystal diffraction. White-beam operation is possible, as well as focused and unfocused monochromatic modes. In addition to an eleven-axis Huber diffractometer, which facilitates simple operation in both vertical and horizontal scattering geometries, there is an in-vacuum polarization analyser and slit system, mirrors for harmonic rejection, sub 4.2 K and 1 Tesla magnetic field sample environment, plus a diamond phase plate for polarization conditioning. The instrumentation developed specifically for this beamline is described, and its use illustrated by recent scientific results.

Magnetism in nickel and synchrotron beam polarization studied by X-ray diffraction.

The ratio of the magnetic to the charge form factors of nickel has been determined by white-beam X-ray diffraction. The measurements were made on the new UK magnetic scattering beamline (XMaS) on a dipole source at the ESRF. The data comprise the three (h,h,0) reflections (4,4,0), (6,6,0) and (8,8,0) and the seven high-order (h,0,0) reflections (6,0,0) to (18,0,0), which doubles the range of wavevectors compared to previous studies. The data have been analysed using Hartree-Fock free-ion wave functions and core electron polarization effects were included. The results support the interpretation of neutron data obtained at lower momentum transfer for the e(g) and t(2g) orbital occupancies. The polarization of the dipole source is deduced to vary from 99.88 to 99.83% between 5 and 15 keV, respectively. This high value makes it an extremely suitable source for studies of ferromagnetism.