Polarized 3He analyzers for neutron reflectometry
Abstract
At the National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST) and Indiana University, we are developing polarized 3He analyzers for neutron reflectometry. We have employed 3He analyzers at two polarized neutron reflectometers, NG1 at the NIST Center for Neutron Research (NCNR) and POSY I at the Intense Pulsed Neutron Source (IPNS), Argonne National Laboratory. The long-term goal for both efforts is to perform efficient studies of magnetic diffuse scattering. At the NCNR, we tested a 3He analyzer by comparing measurements of specular scattering obtained with a supermirror analyzer to those obtained with a 3He analyzer. For this test, we measured the spin-flip and nonspin-flip scattering from a Mn0.52Pd0.48/Fe thin film. The results with the 3He analyzer show very good agreement with those obtained with the supermirror analyzer. We have also carried out tests of the 3He analyzer for application to magnetic diffuse scattering experiments. We discuss the development of a 3He analyzer for IPNS that will be employed for studies of patterned magnetic arrays. © 2003 Elsevier Science B.V. All rights reserved.