Local electronic states of FeN films revealed by X-ray absorption spectroscopy and X-ray magnetic circular dichroism

Ito, Keita*; Toko, Kaoru*; Takeda, Yukiharu   ; Saito, Yuji  ; Oguchi, Tamio*; Suemasu, Takashi*; Kimura, Akio*

We performed XAS and XMCD measurements at Fe L and N K-edges for FeN epitaxial films grown by MBE. We compared experimental XAS and XMCD spectra with those simulated by a combination of a first-principles calculation and Fermi's golden rule. We revealed that the shoulders observed at Fe L-edges in the XAS and XMCD spectra were due to the electric dipole transition from the Fe 2p core-level to the hybridization state generated by anti-bonding between the orbitals of N 2p at the body-centered site and Fe 3d on the face-centered (II) sites. Thus, the observed shoulders were attributed to the local electronic structure of Fe atoms at II sites. As to the N K-edge, the line shape of the obtained spectra was explained by the dipole transition from the N 1s core-level to the hybridization state formed by and anti-bondings between the Fe 3d and N 2p orbitals.