Effect of Nanodiamond Sizes on the Efficiency of the Quasi-Specular Reflection of Cold Neutrons

Nanomaterials can intensively scatter and/or reflect radiation. Such processes and materials are of theoretical and practical interest. Here, we study the quasi-specular reflections (QSRs) of cold neutrons (CNs) and the reflections of very cold neutrons (VCNs) from nanodiamond (ND) powders. The fluo...

Full description

Saved in:
Bibliographic Details
Published in:Materials 2023-01, Vol.16 (2), p.703
Main Authors: Bosak, Alexei, Dubois, Marc, Korobkina, Ekaterina, Lychagin, Egor, Muzychka, Alexei, Nekhaev, Grigory, Nesvizhevsky, Valery, Nezvanov, Alexander, Saerbeck, Thomas, Schweins, Ralf, Strelkov, Alexander, Turlybekuly, Kylyshbek, Zhernenkov, Kirill
Format: Article
Language:English
Subjects:
Angular distribution
Chemical Sciences
Cold neutrons
Crystal lattices
Decomposition
Detonation
Diamonds
Efficiency
Experimental methods
Fluorination
Fluorine
Incoherent scattering
Nanomaterials
Nanostructure
Neutrons
Radiation
Research methodology
Specular reflection
Wavelengths
Citations: Items that this one cites
Items that cite this one
Online Access:Get full text
Tags: Add Tag
No Tags, Be the first to tag this record!
Description
Summary:Nanomaterials can intensively scatter and/or reflect radiation. Such processes and materials are of theoretical and practical interest. Here, we study the quasi-specular reflections (QSRs) of cold neutrons (CNs) and the reflections of very cold neutrons (VCNs) from nanodiamond (ND) powders. The fluorination of ND increased its efficiency by removing/replacing hydrogen, which is otherwise the dominant cause of neutron loss due to incoherent scattering. The probability of the diffuse reflection of VCNs increased for certain neutron wavelengths by using appropriate ND sizes. Based on model concepts of the interaction of CNs with ND, and in reference to our previous work, we assume that the angular distribution of quasi-specularly reflected CNs is narrower, and that the probability of QSRs of longer wavelength neutrons increases if we increase the characteristic sizes of NDs compared to standard detonation nanodiamonds (DNDs). However, the probability of QSRs of CNs with wavelengths below the cutoff of ~4.12 Å decreases due to diffraction scattering on the ND crystal lattice. We experimentally compared the QSRs of CNs from ~4.3 nm and ~15.0 nm ND. Our qualitative conclusions and numerical estimates can help optimize the parameters of ND for specific practical applications based on the QSRs of CNs.
ISSN:1996-1944
1996-1944
DOI:10.3390/ma16020703