Nuclear Resonant Surface Diffraction of Synchrotron Radiation.

Nuclear resonant x-ray diffraction in grazing incidence geometry is used to determine the lateral magnetic configuration in a one-dimensional lattice of ferromagnetic nanostripes. During magnetic reversal, strong nuclear superstructure diffraction peaks appear in addition to the electronic ones due to an antiferromagnetic order in the nanostripe lattice. We show that the analysis of the angular distribution together with the time dependence of the resonantly diffracted x rays reveals surface spin structures with very high sensitivity. This scattering technique provides unique access to laterally correlated spin configurations in magnetically ordered nanostructures and, in perspective, also to their dynamics.