APPLICATION OF MCD IN 4F PHOTOEMISSION AS AN ELEMENT-SPECIFIC PROBE FOR NEAR-SURFACE MAGNETIZATION IN LANTHANIDE MATERIALS

4f photoemission (PE) spectra from magnetically ordered lanthanide mat erials exhibit large magnetic circular dichroism (MCD), i. e. the inte nsities of individual PE multiplet lines depend strongly on the relati ve orientation between sample magnetization and photon momentum. We ap ply MCD-PE as a probe for near-surface magnetization with atomic-layer resolution to the (0001) surfaces of Gd and Tb, where the magnetizati on of the topmost atomic layer - by help of the surface core-level shi ft can be separated spectroscopically from the sub surface magnetizati on. In multicomponent magnetic thin films containing different lanthan ide elements, MCD-PE allows to monitor the magnetization in an element -specific way. This is demonstrated for the example of the heteromagne tic interface Eu/Gd(0001).