Demonstration of a white beam far-field neutron interferometer for spatially resolved small angle neutron scattering

TL;DR

This paper demonstrates a novel neutron interferometer technique that measures microstructure in samples by analyzing far-field interference patterns, offering broad wavelength range and high fringe visibility without absorbing gratings.

Contribution

First implementation of a neutron far-field interferometer for microstructure measurement using moiré pattern of phase gratings, adaptable over multiple length scales.

Findings

Achieved high fringe visibility over 30% in polychromatic beams

Able to measure microstructures from 100 nm to 10 μm

Demonstrated reasonable agreement with theoretical calculations

Abstract

We provide the first demonstration that a neutron far-field interferometer can be employed to measure the microstructure of a sample. The interferometer is based on the moir\'e pattern of two phase modulating gratings which was previously realized in hard x-ray and visible light experiments. The autocorrelation length of this interferometer, and hence the microstructure length scale that is probed, is proportional to the grating spacing and the neutron wavelength, and can be varied over several orders of magnitude for one pair of gratings. We compare our measurements of the change in visibility from monodisperse samples with calculations which show reasonable agreement. The potential advantages of a far-field neutron interferometer include high fringe visibility in a polychromatic beam (over 30 %), no requirement for an absorbing grating to resolve the interference fringes, and the ability to measure the microstructure in the length scale range of 100 nm to 10 \mum by varying either the grating spacing or neutron wavelength with a broad wavelength range and single set of gratings.