Laboratory for Neutron Scattering and Imaging, Paul Scherrer Institut, Villigen, Switzerland.
University of Geneva, Geneva, Switzerland.
Sci Rep. 2021 Apr 13;11(1):8023. doi: 10.1038/s41598-021-87335-3.
In the past decade neutron dark-field contrast imaging has developed from a qualitative tool depicting microstructural inhomogeneities in bulk samples on a macroscopic scale of tens to hundreds of micrometers to a quantitative spatial resolved small-angle scattering instrument. While the direct macroscopic image resolution around tens of micrometers remains untouched microscopic structures have become assessable quantitatively from the nanometer to the micrometer range. Although it was found that magnetic structures provide remarkable contrast we could only recently introduce polarized neutron grating interferometric imaging. Here we present a polarized and polarization analyzed dark-field contrast method for spatially resolved small-angle scattering studies of magnetic microstructures. It is demonstrated how a polarization analyzer added to a polarized neutron grating interferometer does not disturb the interferometric measurements but allows to separate and measure spin-flip and non-spin-flip small-angle scattering and thus also the potential for a distinction of nuclear and different magnetic contributions in the analyzed small-angle scattering.
在过去的十年中，中子暗场对比成像技术已经从一种定性工具发展成为一种定量的空间分辨小角散射仪器，可以在几十到几百微米的宏观尺度上描绘体样品中的微观结构不均匀性。虽然直接宏观图像分辨率仍然保持在几十微米左右，但从纳米到微米范围的微观结构已经可以进行定量评估。尽管已经发现磁性结构提供了显著的对比度，但我们直到最近才引入了极化中子光栅干涉成像。在这里，我们提出了一种用于空间分辨小角散射研究的极化和偏振分析暗场对比方法。演示了如何在极化中子光栅干涉仪中添加偏振分析仪不会干扰干涉测量，但允许分离和测量自旋翻转和非自旋翻转小角散射，从而也可以区分分析小角散射中的核和不同磁性贡献。
