Antiferromagnetism in NiO Observed by Transmission Electron Diffraction

TL;DR

This paper demonstrates that transmission electron diffraction can detect antiferromagnetic order in NiO at nanometer scales, enabling high-resolution imaging of magnetic structures previously studied mainly with neutron diffraction.

Contribution

It introduces a novel method to observe antiferromagnetism in NiO using transmission electron diffraction, achieving nanometer resolution.

Findings

Antiferromagnetic reflections visible in electron diffraction patterns.

Nanometer-scale imaging of antiferromagnetic structure possible.

Method extends magnetic structure analysis to smaller regions.

Abstract

Neutron diffraction has been used to investigate antiferromagnetism since 1949. Here we show that antiferromagnetic reflections can also be seen in transmission electron diffraction patterns from NiO. The diffraction patterns taken here came from regions as small as 10.5 nm and such patterns could be used to form an image of the antiferromagnetic structure with a nanometre resolution.