刊名:Nuclear Instruments and Methods in Physics Research Section A: Accelerators, Spectrometers, Detectors and Associated Equipment
出版年:2016
出版时间:1 December 2016
年:2016
卷:838
期:Complete
页码:33-38
全文大小:1671 K
文摘
An ideal solid-state supermirror (SM) neutron polarizer assumes total reflection of neutrons from the SM coating for one spin-component and total absorption for the other, thus providing a perfectly polarized neutron beam at the exit. However, in practice, the substrate's neutron-nuclei optical potential does not match perfectly that for spin-down neutrons in the SM. For a positive step in the optical potential (as in a Fe/SiNx SM on 2d0f3159d56d" title="Click to view the MathML source">Si substrate), this mismatch results in spin-independent total reflection for neutrons with small momentum transfer Q, limiting the useful neutron bandwidth in the low-Q region. To overcome this limitation, we propose to replace Si single-crystal substrates by media with higher optical potential than that for spin-down neutrons in the SM ferromagnetic layers. We found single-crystal sapphire and single-crystal quartz as good candidates for solid-state Fe/SiNx SM polarizers. To verify this idea, we coated a thick plate of single-crystal sapphire with a m=2.5Fe/SiNx SM. At the T3 instrument at the ILL, we measured the spin-up and spin-down reflectivity curves with neutrons incident from the substrate to the interface between the substrate and the SM coating. Results of this experimental test are in excellent agreement with our expectations: the bandwidth of high polarizing power extends significantly into the low-Q region. This finding, together with the possibility to apply a strong magnetizing field, opens a new road to produce high-efficiency solid-state SM polarizers with an extended neutron wavelength bandwidth and near-to-perfect polarizing power.