Observation of Nuclear Resonant Scattering Accompanied by Phonon Excitation Using Synchrotron Radiation

The phonon energy spectrum of a polycrystalline $\alpha$-Fe foil was observed via nuclear resonant scattering of synchrotron radiation for the first time. The measured spectrum is in good agreement with earlier neutron inelastic scattering data. One of the advantageous features of this method is that excitation of only a specific element is possible. Our results show that this method is applicable to the study of lattice dynamics and open a new field of nuclear resonant scattering spectroscopy.