Grazing-incidence small angle neutron scattering achieved in spectrometer SANS-Suanni of transmission geometry

Current work presents the design and applications of the grazing-incidence small-angle neutron scattering (GISANS) based on SANS-Suanni spectrometer at the 20 MW China Mianyang research reactor (CMRR)-based neutron center. A multi-dimensional sample stage with both front and back slits were designed and set up on SANS-Suanni for achieving the geometry. Experimentally, thin films samples with mono-dispersed silica on sapphire substrates were prepared for collecting two-dimensional (2D) GISANS patterns at beam size setting of 4 mm width and 5 mm height. Typical signals such as the specular reflection peak, Yoneda peak, as well as the sample scattering, etc. were obtained. Moreover, integrated 1D GISANS profiles in different directions, namely vertical and horizontal directions of the incident beam (0V, 0H), and horizontal direction of the Yoneda peak (YH) were obtained via rectangular integration. Accordingly, incident angle (αi) as about 0.76° and the contrast of the sample systems as around 4.07 × 1010 cm−2 were determined. Moreover, the overlapping of 0H curves and the SANS profiles indicates that GISANS can cover some of the structural information as SANS provided, along with the capability of measuring the thin film samples.