A High Visibility Talbot-Lau Neutron Grating Interferometer to Investigate Stress-induced Magnetic Degradation in Electrical Steel

Overview

Journal Sci Rep

Specialty Science

Date 2020 Feb 6

PMID 32019990

Citations 7

Authors

Tobias Neuwirth

Alexander Backs

Alex Gustschin

Simon Vogt

Franz Pfeiffer

Peter Boni

Michael Schulz

Affiliations

Soon will be listed here.

Abstract

Neutron grating interferometry (nGI) is a unique technique allowing to probe magnetic and nuclear properties of materials not accessible in standard neutron imaging. The signal-to-noise ratio of an nGI setup is strongly dependent on the achievable visibility. Hence, for analysis of weak signals or short measurement times a high visibility is desired. We developed a new Talbot-Lau interferometer using the third Talbot order with an unprecedented visibility (0.74) over a large field of view. Using the third Talbot order and the resulting decreased asymmetry allows to access a wide correlation length range. Moreover, we have used a novel technique for the production of the absorption gratings which provides nearly binary gratings even for thermal neutrons. The performance of the new interferometer is demonstrated by visualizing the local magnetic domain wall density in electrical steel sheets when influenced by residual stress induced by embossing. We demonstrate that it is possible to affect the density of the magnetic domain walls by embossing and therefore to engineer the guiding of magnetic fields in electrical steel sheets. The excellent performance of our new setup will also facilitate future studies of dynamic effects in electric steels and other systems.

Citing Articles

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Multi-directional neutron dark-field imaging with single absorption grating.

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Signal Retrieval from Non-Sinusoidal Intensity Modulations in X-ray and Neutron Interferometry Using Piecewise-Defined Polynomial Function.

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Comparison of Thermal Neutron and Hard X-ray Dark-Field Tomography.

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