Abstract : Magnetism has been known to mankind for more than two thousand years. Its first notable technological application has probably been the compass, which still proofs itself as an invaluable tool. In the meantime magnetism has become ubiquitous in our daily live. The prototypical horse-shoes magnet has evolved to generate different families of magnetic devices like electro-magnets, superconductive magnets, or more complex structure like composite magnetic materials used to store data in computers. On the other hand, since their discovery, x-rays have proven as a fundamental tool to investigate solid-state physics. With the advent of synchrotron radiation intense and collimated x-ray beams are routinely available to scientist studying not only physics, but also chemistry and biology. However, due to their electromagnetic nature, x-rays are well suited to study also magnetic materials. In this talk I will give an overview of some of the possibilities offered by synchrotron x-ray radiation to study magnetic properties in solid-state physics using techniques as X-ray Magnetic Circular Dichroism (XMCD), X-ray Magnetic Diffraction (XMD) and recent development in imaging of magnetic moment configurations in bulk samples.

Speaker Bio: After studying physics at Rome’s university La Sapienza, Valerio Scagnoli received his PhD degree in Natural Sciences at the ETH Zurich for his work focusing on competing phenomena occurring at metal-insulator transitions. After a three years Postdoc at the European Radiation Facility establishing complex magnetic ordering in a variety of materials, he moved to the Paul Scherrer Institute to pursue research on exotic order parameters and ultrafast experiments combining short laser and X-ray pulses. Since 2013, he is Senior Scientist in the Mesoscopic System group of Prof. Heyderman where he is responsible for the “ultrafast processes” scientific area.