BARC/PUB/10//0897

 
 

First Observation of Neutron Deflections by Single Crystal Prisms

 
     
 
Author(s)

Abbas, S.; Wagh, A. G.; Strobl, M.; Treimer, W.

ABSTRACT

For a monochromatic neutron beam incident on a single crystal prism, we derived analytic expressions for variations of the deflection dcr and transmitted fraction IO of forward diffracted neutrons, with the incidence angle ?. In the vicinity of a Bragg reflection, dcr deviates sharply from the deflection dam for an equivalent amorphous prism, reaching opposite extrema at either end of the total reflectivity domain and exhibits a 3 orders of magnitude greater sensitivity to q than dam. We have experimentally observed the variation of dcr and IO across a Bragg reflection for single crystal silicon prisms of various apex angles in several asymmetric Bragg configurations. The observed dcr deviates from d am by upto 27% with sensitivities |ddcr/dq| upto 0.43 arcsec/arcsec. The results are in harmony with theory. This observation has led to the design of a super-collimator Brag.

 
 
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