Selective Study of Fe Atoms at the Interfaces of an Fe/Ir(100) Superlattice by means of Diffraction Anomalous Fine Structure

Studies of superlattices are important in order to synthesize 3D metals in a new crystalline structure which may exhibit exotic magnetic properties. The challenge is to relate these properties to the details of the chemical gradient and the local strain. We report the use of diffraction anomalous fine structure (DAFS) spectroscopy and a crystallographic analysis of the DAFS data to separate the x-ray-absorption fine structure (XAFS)-like information about Fe atoms located at different crystallographic sites of an Fe/Ir(100) superlattice. We obtained the first and the second (in the plane of growth) nearest-neighbor distances of Fe atoms at the Ir-Fe interface.