Neutron supermirror

A neutron super mirror is a mirror that is used in the neutron line and increases the maximum angle of reflection of neutrons. The reflection comes about to the critical angle of the top layer material through the actual total reflection, because the maxima close to the Bragg reflection, which decrease with increasing angle of incidence. The mirror is made of several layers of different metals (usually two ) that, based on a glass or silicon substrate, can be applied. The layer thickness increases from the substrate towards. One example used Silicon, nickel, titanium or alloys thereof. The coating of the substrate is usually done by sputtering. Neutron super mirrors can be designed so that you can spin up and spin down neutrons disconnect with them, thus it can produce a polarized neutron beam. But one of the layer materials must be ferromagnetic and the super mirror located in a magnetic field. The effect is exploited here the splitting of the scattering length density of the magnetic material.