An Aberration Corrected Spin Resolved LEEM
The worlds first efficiently working AC-SPLEEM has been built by the group of Wen-Xin Tang at the Chongqing University in China. On the basis of a SPECS FE-LEEM P90. Spin polarized LEEM measurements with lateral resolutions well below 3.3 nm have been achieved on iron islands on W(110).
The development for the spin polarized LEEM involved a special modification of the FE-LEEM P90 with an additional magnetic prism optic. The IBM design of the LEEM allows a simple extension with additional prism optics to extend the capabilities of the instrument. In the present case a magnetic prism is used to couple two electron sources into the optical system, making use of the bipolar design of the LEEM optics. This design allows switching between two sources of which one is a laser driven electron source generating spin polarized electrons.
Using the thus built SPLEEM, iron nano-islands have been studied and characterized by their magnetic behaviour. Using the spin polarization along different crystallographic orientations and is combined to vector maps showing the spin asymmetry laterally resolved. Using the Spin polarized electron source a lateral resolution as low as 3.3 nm has been achieved.