Synchrotron radiation, soft-X-ray spectroscopy and nanomaterials

Both synchrotron radiation based soft-X-ray absorption spectroscopy (XAS) and resonant soft-X-ray emission spectroscopy (XES) on a variety of nano-structured systems has yielded characteristic fingerprints. With high-resolution monochromatized synchrotron radiation excitation, resonant inelastic X-ray scattering (RIXS) has emerged as a new source of information about electronic structure and excitation dynamics of nanomaterials. The selectivity of the excitation, in terms of energy and polarization, has also facilitated studies of emission anisotropy. Various features observed in resonant emission spectra have been identified and studied.