Revealing Fe magnetism in lanthanide-iron intermetallic compounds by tuning the rare-earth L2,3-edge x-ray absorption edges

We present a systematic x-ray magnetic circular dichroism (XMCD) study performed at the rare-earth L2,3 edges in R(Al1-xFex)2 Laves phase compounds. The progressive substitution of Al by Fe reveals the existence of a non-negligible contribution of Fe to the rare-earth XMCD spectra. This contribution has been isolated and shown to be similar to the dichroic spectrum recorded at the Fe K edge. These results open the possibility of monitoring the Fe magnetism in lanthanides-iron intermetallic compounds by probing the rare-earth L2,3-edge x-ray absorption edges