Neutron Compound Refractive Prisms - DOE SBIR Phase II Final Report.

摘要

The results of the research led to a pulsed electromagnetic periodic magnetic field array (PMF), which coupled with a pair of collimation slits, and a mechanical chopper slit, were able to deflect spin-up neutrons to a band of line-fused neutrons a focal plane heights that correspond to the time-varying magnetic field amplitude. The electromagnetic field PMF produced 5.4 pulses per minute in which each pulse was 50 msec in duration with a full width half maximum (FWHM) of 7.5 msec. The calculated 7.7 mm vertical height of the band of focused spin-up neutrons corresponded closely to the measured 7.5 mm height of the center line of the imaged band of neutrons. The band of deflected spin-up neutrons was 5 mm in vertical width and the bottom of the band was 5 mm above the surface of the PMF pole. The limited exposure time of 3 hours and the smaller 0.78 T magnetic field allowed focused and near focused neutrons of 1.8 neutrons, which were in the tails of the McClellan Nuclear Radiation Center Bay 4 Maxwell Boltzmann distribution of neutrons with peak flux at 1.1-1.2. The electromagnetic PMF was expected to produces a 2.0 T peak magnetic field amplitude, which would be operational at a higher duty factor, rather than the as built 7.5 msec FWHM with pulse repetition frequency of 5.4 pulses per minute. The fabricated pulsed electromagnetic PMF with chopper is expected to perform well on a cold, very cold or ultra cold beam line as a spectrometer or monochromator source of spin-up polarized neutron. In fact there may be a possible use of the PMF to do ultra-cold neutron trapping, see paper by A. I. Frank, V. G. Nosov, Quantum Effects in a One-Dimensional Magnetic Gravitational Trap for Ultracold Neutrons, JETP Letters, Vol. 79, No. 7, 2004, pp. 313 and 315. The next step is to find a cold or very cold neutron facility, where further testing or use of the pulsed magnetic field PMF can be pursued.