Focusing neutron reflectometry: Implementation and experience on the TOF-reflectometer Amor

Neutron reflectometry is a powerful tool to investigate chemical and magnetic depth profiles near surfaces. The advantages of neutrons compared to x-rays are their sensitivity to isotopes, the high penetration capabilities and the high sensitivity to magnetic induction. The biggest disadvantage however is the low flux available, which leads to much longer counting times on much larger samples. In order to boost the performance of neutron reflectometers, a focusing guide system was developed and realised over recent years. Here we report on the application and performance of a down-scaled demonstrator of such a Selene guide, installed as an add-on on the time-of-flight (TOF) reflectometer Amor at the PSI. Due to the limited size of the guide, the flux is concentrated to a footprint of at most 2 mm width. It is thus possible to avoid illumination of contacts even on small samples. Despite the fact that typical samples measured on Amor with a size of 10×10mm2 are markedly under illuminated, the presented set-up leads to a reduction in counting time of 80%. The use of the demonstrator thus allows for in-situ or in-operando investigations with a time resolution of a few minutes for a qz range from 0.005Å−1 to 0.08Å−1. Besides a short recapitulation of the concept of focusing reflectometry, a detailed description of the data reduction and its quality is given, followed by an application example.