A brief summary of the early history of work with polarised neutrons is presented, beginning with the suggestion by Bloch in 1936 that polarised neutron beams could be produced by transmission through magnetised iron. The development of this technique, concurrent developments in the theory of magnetic scattering, plus alternate methods of producing polarised neutrons such as reflection from magnetised mirrors and Bragg scattering from ferromagnets, are followed. The construction and use of the two-axis polarised-beam diffractometer in 1956 and the triple-axis polarisedbeam spectrometer in 1968 are discussed.
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