Ryuji Maruyama

AMATERAS: A Cold-Neutron Disk Chopper Spectrometer

AMATERAS is a new disk-chopper-type spectrometer installed at Materials and Life Science Experimental Facility (MLF) of J-PARC. AMATERAS is equipped with an extra chopper for pulse shaping at the upstream position, in addition to a monochromating chopper, which conventional chopper spectrometers at pulsed source have. Owing to the use of these choppers and the high peak intensity from a coupled moderator source at MLF, the AMATERAS design realizes high-intensity and high-energy-resolution measurements in quasielastic and inelastic neutron scattering experiments. The spectrometer had the first neutron beam in May 2009. During the course of commissioning, the performance of the spectrometer was confirmed by conducting test experiments. AMATERAS is now open to users and is producing scientific outputs.

Figuring of plano-elliptical neutron focusing mirror by local wet etching

Local wet etching technique was proposed to fabricate high-performance aspherical mirrors. In this process, only the limited area facing to the small nozzle is removed by etching on objective surface. The desired objective shape is deterministically fabricated by performing the numerically controlled scanning of the nozzle head. Using the technique, a plano-elliptical mirror to focus the neutron beam was successfully fabricated with the figure accuracy of less than 0.5 microm and the focusing gain of 6. The strong and thin focused neutron beam is expected to be a useful tool for the analyses of various material properties.

Effect of interfacial roughness correlation on diffuse scattering intensity in a neutron supermirror

Neutron supermirrors are increasingly important devices for transporting, bending, and focusing neutron beams. Reflected neutrons from a supermirror are divided into specular and off-specular (diffuse) components. Suppression of the diffuse component is important since it reduces the signal-to-noise ratio, a serious problem when a supermirror is used in a focusing system for purposes such as small angle scattering measurements. The diffuse intensity can be decreased by more than one order of magnitude by adopting NiC/Ti multilayers instead of conventional Ni/Ti multilayers. In order to obtain insight into the mechanism that controls the diffuse intensity from a supermirror, the crystal structure of Ni and NiC monolayers and the interface structure of Ni/Ti and NiC/Ti multilayers were investigated. The crystallite size in the NiC monolayer was found to be smaller than that in the Ni monolayer by a factor of 4.1 by x-ray diffraction measurement. The interface structure of the Ni/Ti and NiC/Ti multilayers wa...

Development and demonstration of in-situ SEOP 3He spin filter system for neutron spin analyzer on the SHARAKU polarized neutron reflectometer at J-PARC

A new neutron reflectometer, SHARAKU, with a vertical sample-plane geometry was installed at beam line 17 at J-PARC Materials and Life Science Facility. Although a polarizing supermirror was previously installed as a neutron spin analyzer on SHARAKU, a 3He spin filter is advantageous because it can cover a large solid angle. An in-situ SEOP 3He spin filter system using a new compact laser unit has been developed for the analyzer. In this paper, we report a successful off-specular measurement with the new compact in-situ SEOP analyzer at SHARAKU.

One-dimensional neutron focusing with large beam divergence by 400mm-long elliptical supermirror

Reflective optics is one of the most useful techniques for focusing a neutron beam with a wide wavelength range since there is no chromatic aberration. Neutrons can be focused within a small area of less than 1 mm2 by high-performance aspherical supermirrors with high figure accuracy and a low smooth substrate surface and a multilayer interface. Increasing the mirror size is essential for increasing the focusing gain. We have developed a fabrication process that combines conventional precision grinding, HF dip etching, numerically controlled local wet etching (NC-LWE) figuring, low-pressure polishing and ion beam sputtering deposition of the supermirror coating to fabricate a large aspherical supermirror. We designed and fabricated an piano-elliptical mirror with large clear aperture size using the developed fabrication process. We obtained a figure error of 0.43 μm p-v and an rms roughness of less than 0.2 nm within an effective reflective length of 370 mm. A NiC/Ti supermirror with m = 4 was deposited on the substrate using ion beam sputtering equipment. The results of focusing experiments show that a focusing gain of 52 at the peak intensity was achieved compared with the case without focusing. Furthermore, the result of imaging plate measurements indicated that the FWHM focusing width of the fabricated mirror is 0.128 mm.

High-precision figured thin supermirror substrates for multiple neutron focusing device

An aspherical supermirror is one of the most useful neutron-focusing optics. We aim to develop multiple aspherical supermirror devices using high-precision figured aspherical focusing supermirrors to focus neutron beams with high intensities, because multiple mirrors collect a very large beam divergence. Thin mirrors with a millimeter thickness are required to minimize the absorption loss of incident neutron beams since the thickness of a mirror shadows the reflective area of the other mirrors. However, it is difficult to fabricate thin mirror substrates with a form accuracy of sub-micrometer level by conventional machining. Conventional machining deforms a substrate by machining force and spring back after machining causes figure error. Furthermore the deposition of supermirrors deforms the mirror substrate by film stress. Thus, we developed a new process of fabricating a precise millimeter-thick elliptical supermirror. This process consists of noncontact figuring by the numerically controlled local wet etching technique and the ion beam sputter deposition of NiC/Ti multilayers on both sides of the mirror substrate to compensate for film stress. In this paper, we report on the fabrication results and focusing performance of elliptical supermirrors with a thickness of 1.5 mm.

Development of a modified neutron spin echo spectrometer using multilayer spin splitters

Abstract A multilayer spin splitter (MSS) is a device which gives the same effect as a magnetic field to the Larmor-precessing neutron. Since MSS is a single mirror, a neutron spin echo (NSE) can be much smaller (less than 1 m along the neutron beam) when MSSs successfully replace the Larmor precession magnetic field. The aim of our research is to replace the precession magnetic fields in NSE spectrometer by a set of MSSs and realize a very compact neutron spin echo spectrometer. In the present report, we will present the results of the preliminary experiment of the compact NSE spectrometer, and discuss its applicability to the pulsed neutron sources.

Effect of Si interlayers on the magnetic and mechanical properties of Fe/Ge neutron polarizing multilayer mirrors

The neutron polarizing supermirror is one of the most important optical devices for polarizing neutron beams. To meet a variety of research demands, neutron polarizing supermirrors need to display high polarization efficiencies at low external magnetic fields. Fe/Si and Fe/Ge multilayers are typically used in neutron polarizing supermirrors because the contrast in scattering length densities almost vanishes for spin-down neutrons. The Fe/Si/Ge/Si multilayer, obtained by adding thin interlayers of Si to an Fe/Ge multilayer, is effective in reducing the external field strength necessary to achieve efficient neutron polarization. To gain insight into the mechanism that controls the required external field strength for a neutron polarizing supermirror, we investigated the magnetic and mechanical properties of Fe/Si, Fe/Ge, and Fe/Si/Ge/Si multilayers. The external field strength required to achieve efficient neutron polarization was found to be proportional to the compressive film stress. The compressive stre...

Figuring of Aspherical Metal Mirror Substrate for Neutron Focusing by Numerically Controlled Electrochemical Machining

Neutron beam generated by high intensity proton accelerator facility is powerful tool to investigate characteristics of soft and hard materials. However, neutron beam is not major tool for material science since intensity of neutron beam is very weak compared to that of X-rays. Neutron focusing device is required to increase in intensity of neutron beam. Aspherical supermirror is effective for neutron focusing with wide wavelength range without chromatic aberration. In this research, we proposed a fabrication process for large and cost-effective aspherical mirror substrate made of aluminum alloy because metal can be figured coarsely at low cost by using conventional machining. The mirror fabrication process proposed by us consists of grinding for coarse figuring, numerically controlled electrochemical machining (NC-ECM) to correct objective shape with form accuracy of sub-micrometer level and low-pressure polishing to decrease in surface roughness to sub-nanometer level. In the case of figure correction of the mirror substrate by NC-ECM, deterministic correction is realized because NC-ECM is a non-contact electrochemical removal process for metal materials, without workpiece deformation. In this paper, we report fundamental machining characteristics of ECM, which uses electrode with a diameter of 10 mm and NaNO3 electrolyte.

Neutron beam focusing using large-m supermirrors coated on precisely-figured aspheric surfaces

We have developed a 1-dimensional elliptic mirror combining a supermirror coated with ion-beam sputtering and precise elliptic surface figured with the numerically-controlled local wet etching process. In this study, NiC/Ti supermirror (m = 4) was deposited on a precisely figured surface of synthesized quartz glass over 90 mm × 40 mm. Wideband neutrons of λ > 3.64A were focused with focal spot size down to 0.25 mm, peak intensity gain up to 6 without significant diffuse scattering. Time-of-flight measurements suggest that wideband neutrons are effectively focused to the focal point.