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Neutrons and Materials Science

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  29 November 2013

John D. Axe ,
John B. Hayter  and
Roger Pynn
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Extract

This issue of the MRS BULLETIN is devoted to the technique of neutron scattering and its role in materials characterization. Compared with electrons and x-rays, the other major scattering probes, neutrons seem exotic and expensive. Why then are they so important? This article will address this question generically, with a few specific examples. Subsequent articles will address in greater detail a few of the more prominent techniques that are important for materials scientists.

We will begin by reviewing why scattering methods are used to study structure, when for many materials it is possible to employ electron microscopy (where, of course, the images are reconstructed from the interference among the scattered waves). One reason is that direct imaging often tells very little about the relationship between an observed structure and the material properties that derive from it. Figure 1, for example, shows a stereo image of a colloidal latex which is clearly crystalline. The stereo view of the same material in the melt seems random to the eye. If many thousands of such images are taken, however, and the number of pairs of particles separated by a given distance are plotted against the separation (this is the so-called pair distribution function), it is found that certain separations are highly probable, while others are equally improbable. In the systems of Figures 1 and 2, the pair distribution functions are not very different (particularly for separations up to several interatomic distances), and it is this function which governs the thermodynamic properties of the material.

Type
Neutron Scattering
Information
MRS Bulletin , Volume 15 , Issue 11 , November 1990 , pp. 42 - 47
Copyright
Copyright © Materials Research Society 1990

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References

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