Soft x-ray absorption spectroscopy measurement methods with using x-ray scattering techniques

Methodology via x-ray absorption spectroscopy (XAS) has been actively employed for exploring the microscopic aspects of materials. In particular, such method within soft x-ray energy range is very useful for investigating strongly correlated systems, such as high T$_C$ superconductor, and multiferroic, including heterostructures. While XAS approach on such materials has been used, however we sometimes confront a few of experimental difficulties; electron motion distortion under external fields, charging effect, and saturation effect. In this presentation, we introduce an alternative approach for overcoming the difficulties in conventional XAS measurement, which uses soft x-ray scattering techniques, i.e., reflection and diffraction. Due to photon-in and photon-out nature, probing depth becomes longer and possible to reduce several problems in conventional total electron yield method. The results of demonstrations on simple monoxide CoO and multiferroic Y-type hexaferrites will be given.