Hostname: page-component-586b7cd67f-r5fsc Total loading time: 0 Render date: 2024-11-26T19:44:39.310Z Has data issue: false hasContentIssue false
  • English
  • Français

Neutrons and Materials Science

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  29 November 2013

John D. Axe ,
John B. Hayter  and
Roger Pynn
Get access

Extract

This issue of the MRS BULLETIN is devoted to the technique of neutron scattering and its role in materials characterization. Compared with electrons and x-rays, the other major scattering probes, neutrons seem exotic and expensive. Why then are they so important? This article will address this question generically, with a few specific examples. Subsequent articles will address in greater detail a few of the more prominent techniques that are important for materials scientists.

We will begin by reviewing why scattering methods are used to study structure, when for many materials it is possible to employ electron microscopy (where, of course, the images are reconstructed from the interference among the scattered waves). One reason is that direct imaging often tells very little about the relationship between an observed structure and the material properties that derive from it. Figure 1, for example, shows a stereo image of a colloidal latex which is clearly crystalline. The stereo view of the same material in the melt seems random to the eye. If many thousands of such images are taken, however, and the number of pairs of particles separated by a given distance are plotted against the separation (this is the so-called pair distribution function), it is found that certain separations are highly probable, while others are equally improbable. In the systems of Figures 1 and 2, the pair distribution functions are not very different (particularly for separations up to several interatomic distances), and it is this function which governs the thermodynamic properties of the material.

Type
Neutron Scattering
Information
MRS Bulletin , Volume 15 , Issue 11 , November 1990 , pp. 42 - 47
Copyright
Copyright © Materials Research Society 1990

Access options

Get access to the full version of this content by using one of the access options below. (Log in options will check for institutional or personal access. Content may require purchase if you do not have access.)

References

1.Sears, V.F., Thermal Neutron Scattering Lengths and Cross Sections for Condensed Matter Research, Report No. AECL-8490, 1984 (Atomic Energy of Canada Ltd., Chalk River).Google Scholar
2.Neutron Resonance Radiography, edited by Lynn, J.E. and Hyer, D.K., Report No. LA-11393-C, 1988 (Los Alamos National Laboratory Conference Report).Google Scholar
3.Grimm, H., Axe, J.D., and Krohnke, C., Phys. Rev. 25 (1982) p. 1709.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
4. For a review of inelastic neutron scattering see, for example, Price, D.L. and Skold, K., Methods of Experimental Physics A, Vol. 23 (Academic Press, 1986).Google Scholar
5.Thomlinson, W., Shirane, G., Moncton, D.E., Ishikawa, M., and Fischer, O., Phys. Rev. 23 (1981) p. 4455; J.W. Lynn, A. Raggazoni, R. Pynn, and J. Joffrin, J. Physique Lettres 42 (1981) p. L45.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
6.Moon, R.M., Riste, T., Koehler, W.C., Phys. Rev. 181 (1969) p 920.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
7.Guinier, A. and Fournet, G., Small Angle X-ray Scattering (Wiley, New York, 1955).Google Scholar
8.Wright, A.F., Fitch, A.N., Hayter, J.B., and Fender, B.E.F., Physics Chem. of Glasses 26 (1985) p. 113.Google Scholar
9.Hayter, J.B., in Foundations of Colloid Science, edited by Hunter, R.J. (Clarendon, Oxford, 1989), p. 827.Google Scholar
10.Hayter, J.B. and Penfold, J., J. Phys. Chem. 88 (1984) p. 4589.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
11.Cummins, P.G., Staples, E., Hayter, J.B., and Penfold, J., J. Chem. Soc., Faraday Trans. I. 3 (1987) p. 2773.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
12.Hayter, J.B., Pynn, R., Charles, S.W., Skjelthorp, A.T., Trewhella, J., Stubbs, G., and Timmins, P., Phys. Rev. Lett. 62 (1989) p. 1667.CrossRefGoogle Scholar