It was recently proposed that electron magnetic circular dichroism can be measured in scanning transmission electron microscopy with atomic resolution by tuning the phase distribution of an electron beam. Here, we describe the theoretical and practical aspects for the detection of out-of-plane and in-plane magnetization utilizing atomic size electron probes. We present the calculated optimized astigmatic probes and discuss how to achieve them experimentally.

• Received 20 December 2015
• Revised 26 February 2016

DOI:https://doi.org/10.1103/PhysRevB.93.104420