Magnetic structures and neutron polarimetry

In a thermal neutron scattering experiment, Spherical Neutron Polarimetry (SNP) requires that the incident and the final neutron polarization vectors be measured independently. The method exploits the maximum information one can get from magnetic neutron scattering. Recently, it has been used quite successfully in the study of antiferromagnetic structures and their domain populations. The challenging measurement is now straightforward with our neutron polarimeter CRYOPAD as long as the sample chamber does not contain any magnetic field. Polarimetry on magnetized samples remains the domain of the classical Uniax ial Polarization Analysis (UPA) which measures only the longitudinal component of polarization in an applied field.