Demonstration of Achromatic Cold-Neutron Microscope Utilizing Axisymmetric Focusing Mirrors

TL;DR

This paper demonstrates an achromatic cold-neutron microscope using Wolter optics, achieving magnification and resolution improvements over traditional neutron imaging methods, with potential for enhanced scientific applications.

Contribution

It introduces a novel neutron microscope design with nested coaxial mirrors that improves resolution and magnification, surpassing traditional pinhole-camera techniques.

Findings

Achromatic imaging with magnification of 4 demonstrated.

Measured resolution and field of view match ray-tracing simulations.

Potential for significant improvements in neutron imaging resolution and signal rate.

Abstract

An achromatic cold-neutron microscope with magnification 4 is demonstrated. The image-forming optics is composed of nested coaxial mirrors of full figures of revolution, so-called Wolter optics. The spatial resolution, field of view, and depth of focus are measured and found consistent with ray-tracing simulations. Methods of increasing the resolution and magnification are discussed, as well as the scientific case for the neutron microscope. In contrast to traditional pinhole-camera neutron imaging, the resolution of the microscope is determined by the mirrors rather than by the collimation of the beam, leading to possible dramatic improvements in the signal rate and resolution.