The atomic-like behavior of the photoionization cross-section of core levels in solids is remarkably displayed in the observation of linear magnetic dichroism in the angular distribution of photoelectrons. Structure-related effects are clearly visible as modulations of the dichroism signal, induced by photoelectron diffraction, a fact that can be exploited to obtain information from magnetic surfaces. A systematic investigation of such effects has been carried out for Fe 2p and 3p core levels on the ALOISA beamline at ELETTRA. We present results for Fe(0 0 1) with a reference calibration for amorphous RCP-Fe grown on Fe30Ni50B20, which provides the atomic-like standard, free from diffraction effects.
