Anisotropic x-ray magnetic linear dichroism at the Fe L2,3 edgesin Fe3O4

X-ray magnetic linear dichroism at the Fe L{sub 2,3} edges of the ferrimagnet Fe{sub 3}O{sub 4} was found to exhibit a strong dependence on the relative orientation of external magnetic field, x-ray polarization, and crystalline axes. Spectral shape and magnitude of the effect were determined for Fe{sub 3}O{sub 4}(011) and Fe{sub 3}O{sub 4}(001) thin films varying the in-plane orientation of field and polarization. All dichroism spectra can be described as a linear combination of three fundamental spectra which in turn give a good agreement with calculated spectra using atomic multiplet theory. The angular dependence of the magnetic dichroism reflects the crystal field symmetry. It can be used to estimate the crystal field splitting and allows determining the spin quantization axis