Magnetic excitations of layered cuprates studied by RIXS at Cu L-3 edge

The inelastic scattering of X-rays is becoming a powerful alternative to better established techniques, based on neutrons or low energy photons, for the study of low- and medium-energy excitations in solids. When performed in the soft range the resonant inelastic X-ray scattering (RIXS) is ideal for strongly correlated electron systems based on 3d transition metals. The remarkable evolution of Cu L3 RIXS has been boosted by the steady improvement of experimental energy resolution, and by the fortunate fact that cuprates give intense and richly featured spectra. Over the last 8 years several key results were obtained using the AXES (ESRF) and the SAXES (SLS) spectrometers. This initial success is now supporting several new projects for soft X-ray RIXS worldwide. We briefly present here the case of spin excitation dispersion in insulating and superconducting cuprates and the first RIXS spectra with partial polarization analysis of the scattered photons.