Magnets shine in a different color

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Measuring -or feeling- magnetic interactions looks simple at first glance: holding two magnets close to each other gives an immediate idea. How about the case when the 'magnets of interest' are tiny and amount to nothing more than atoms? X-rays generated at the Swiss Light Source allow 'zooming in' on magnetic interactions relevant at inter-atomic scale: we bring forward the first evidence of local spin flips of atomic moments in a 'photon-in photon-out' scattering experiment.

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Facility: SLS
Localized Electronic Excitations in NiO Studied with Resonant Inelastic X-Ray Scattering at the Ni M Threshold: Evidence of Spin Flip S. G. Chiuzbãian et al. Phys. Rev. Lett. 95, 197402 (2005)