Determination of the Specific Site Occupation of Rare Earth Additions in Y17Sm06,Lu07Fe5O12Thin Films by the Orientation Dependence of Characteristic X-Ray Emissions

The orientation dependence of characteristic x-ray emissions have been used to determine specific site occupations of Rare Earth additions in epitaxially grown films of Y1.7Sm0.6 Lu0.7Fe12. A theoretical formulation based on the assumption of highly localiszed inner shell excitations was used not only to oredict specific site sensitive orientations, but also to refine experimentally observed data employing a constrained least squares analysis to give probabilities for the occupation of the RE additions in the different crystallographic sites. Thus, it has been shown that in this compound the preference for the RE additions is a predominantly octahedral occupation with a probability ≳95%. Some of theassumptions and limitations of the technique have also been discussed.