Surface diffraction on magnetic nanostructures in thin films using grazing incidence SANS

SANS offers the possibility to study nanostructures of sizes ranging from 2 to 200 nm. We have explored the possibility of using SANS in a grazing incidence geometry (GISANS) in order to study magnetic nanostructures in thin films (thickness ∼50 nm). Even though the amount of material is tiny in such films (∼50 μg), working in grazing incidence allows to look at the scattered signal from in-plane magnetic nanostructures in the films. We have performed surface diffraction on magnetic nanostructures (∼100 nm in size) on a system consisting of Fe 0.5 Pd 0.5 thin films with a magnetic perpendicular anisotropy. The measurements have been performed in various magnetic field configurations. Magnetic surface diffraction can easily be observed. We present these measurements together with calculations based on a Born approximation. We discuss the information that can be extracted from such polarized neutron measurements.