We discuss the feasibility of detecting magnetic transitions with focused electron vortex probes, suggested by selection rules for the magnetic quantum number. We theoretically estimate the dichroic signal strength in the L₂,₃ edge of ferromagnetic d metals. It is shown that under realistic conditions, the dichroic signal is undetectable for nanoparticles larger than ∼1 nm. This is confirmed by a key experiment with nanometer-sized vortices.
Keywords: EMCD; Electron vortices; Inelastic scattering; Orbital angular momentum.
© 2013 The Authors. Published by Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.