Premium
Focusing cold neutrons with multiple biconcave lenses for small‐angle neutron scattering
Author(s) -
Choi S.M.,
Barker J.G.,
Glinka C.J.,
Cheng Y.T.,
Gammel P.L.
Publication year - 2000
Publication title -
journal of applied crystallography
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
SCImago Journal Rank - 1.429
H-Index - 162
ISSN - 1600-5767
DOI - 10.1107/s0021889800099799
Subject(s) - optics , pinhole (optics) , collimated light , neutron , lens (geology) , neutron scattering , nist , physics , small angle neutron scattering , beam (structure) , pinhole camera , scattering , resolution (logic) , materials science , nuclear physics , computer science , laser , natural language processing , artificial intelligence
The focusing of a cold neutron beam by multiple biconcave lenses has recently been proposed as a practical means of extending the lower limit of Q in conventional, long flight‐path small‐angle neutron scattering (SANS) instruments. To test the feasibility of this approach, we have carried out extensive measurements on one of the 30 m SANS instruments at NIST of the focusing characteristics of a set of 28 biconcave MgF 2 lenses. The focused beam profile has been measured over several orders of magnitude using high resolution neutron auto‐radiography. The focusing lens configuration outperforms the pinhole collimation at Q min lower than 0.004 Å −1 . At Q min = 0.001 Å −1 , the intensity gain of the lens configuration over the pinhole collimation is greater than one order of magnitude.