Neutron scattering power

The opposite signs for the neutron scattering power of hydrogen and deuterium (—0.38 and +0.65) offers the possibility for investigating (slow) self-diffusion between different water sites and/or localization of water molecules with different mobility if diffraction experiments are carried out for a sample where D20 is exchanged in steps vs. H20. 

The most unambiguous approach to the assignment of C or N is the use of neutron diffraction. The neutron scattering power of C and N differs enough that even in disordered compounds the occupancies of C and N can be assigned. The only report of this technique for nitrosyl carbonyl complexes is for HW2(CO)9(NO) (58). 

Because structural phase transitions are often ferroelastic or coelastic in character it is essential to have a well-defined stress applied to the crystal at high pressures. In effect, this means that a hydrostatic pressure medium must be used to enclose the crystal. A 4 1 mixture by volume of methanol ethanol remains hydrostatic to just over 10 GPa (Eggert et al. 1992) and is convenient and suitable for many studies. If the sample dissolves in alcohols, then a mixture of pentane and iso-pentane which remains hydrostatic to 6 GPa (Nomura et al. 1982), or a solidified gas such as N2, He, or Ar can be employed. Water appears to remain hydrostatic to about 2.5 GPa at room temperature, just above the phase transition from ice-VI to ice-VII (Angel, unpublished data). The solid pressure media such as NaCl or KCl favoured by spectroscopists are very non-hydrostatic even at pressures below 1 GPa and have been shown to displace phase transitions by at least several kbar (e g. Sowerby and Ross 1996). Similarly, the fluorinert material used in many neutron diffraction experiments because of its low neutron scattering power becomes significantly non-hydrostatic at -1.3 GPa. Decker et al. (1979) showed that the ferroelastic phase transition that occurs at 1.8 GPa in lead phosphate under hydrostatic conditions is not observed up to 3.6 GPa when fluorinert was used as the pressure medium. At pressures in excess of the hydrostatic limit of the solidified gas and fluid... 

Uncertainties of the conventional parameters of H-atoms have been addressed since the early applications of X-ray charge density method. Support from ND measurements appears to be essential, because the neutron scattering power is a nuclear property (it is independent of the electronic structure and the scattering angle). The accuracy of nuclear parameters obtained from ND data thus depends mainly on the extent to which dynamic effects (most markedly thermal diffuse scattering) and extinction are correctable. Problems associated with different experimental conditions and different systematic errors affecting the ND and XRD measurements have to be addressed whenever a joint interpretation of these data is attempted. This has become apparent in studies which aimed either to refine XRD and ND data simultaneously [59] (commonly referred to as the X+N method), or to impose ND-derived parameters directly into the fit of XRD data (X—N method) [16]. In order to avoid these problems, usually only the ND parameters of the H-atoms are used and fixed in the XRD refinement (X-(X+N) method). 

The principles of neutron scattering theory as applied to the solution of polymer problems have been described in a number of papers and review articles (8-23). The coherent intensity in a SANS experiment is given by the scattering cross-section dl/dG, which is the probability that a neutron will be scattered into a solid angle, for unit volume of the sample. The quantity d /dG expresses the neutron scattering power of a sample and is the counterpart of the Rayleigh ratio, R(0), used in lightscattering. 

Low-angle neutron scattering A set of techniques that can be used to find the size of a particle in solution or to find the size or spacing of internal regions that can be distinguished by different neutron scattering power, such as the protein and nucleic acid components of a nucleoprotein particle or labeled proteins within a multisubunit complex. 

The polymer concentration profile has been measured by small-angle neutron scattering from polymers adsorbed onto colloidal particles [70,71] or porous media [72] and from flat surfaces with neutron reflectivity [73] and optical reflectometry [74]. The fraction of segments bound to the solid surface is nicely revealed in NMR studies [75], infrared spectroscopy [76], and electron spin resonance [77]. An example of the concentration profile obtained by inverting neutron scattering measurements appears in Fig. XI-7, showing a typical surface volume fraction of 0.25 and layer thickness of 10-15 nm. The profile decays rapidly and monotonically but does not exhibit power-law scaling [70]. 

In a sense, a superconductor is an insulator that has been doped (contains random defects in the metal oxide lattice). Some of the defects observed via neutron diffraction experiments include metal site substitutions or vacancies, and oxygen vacancies or interstituals (atomic locations between normal atom positions). Neutron diffraction experiments have been an indispensable tool for probing the presence of vacancies, substitutions, or interstituals because of the approximately equal scattering power of all atoms. 

As indicated, the power law approximations to the fS-correlator described above are only valid asymptotically for a —> 0, but corrections to these predictions have been worked out.102,103 More important, however, is the assumption of the idealized MCT that density fluctuations are the only slow variables. This assumption breaks down close to Tc. The MCT has been augmented by coupling to mass currents, which are sometimes termed inclusion of hopping processes, but the extension of the theory to temperatures below Tc or even down to Tg has not yet been successful.101 Also, the theory is often not applied to experimental density fluctuations directly (observed by neutron scattering) but instead to dielectric relaxation or to NMR experiments. These latter techniques probe reorientational motion of anisotropic molecules, whereas the MCT equation describes a scalar quantity. Using MCT results to compare with dielectric or NMR experiments thus forces one to assume a direct coupling of orientational correlations with density fluctuations exists. The different orientational correlation functions and the question to what extent they directly couple to the density fluctuations have been considered in extensions to the standard MCT picture.104-108... 

One of the most powerful techniques by which protein-protein neighborhoods within the ribosomal particles can be elucidated is neutron scattering. When using this method to determine the relative positions of proteins in the 30 S subunit, the pardcle is reconstituted with two specific proteins that are deuterated whereas all other ribosomal components are in the protonated form (Moore, 1980). The subunits containing the two deuterated proteins give additional contributions to the scattering curves which provide information on the lengths of the vectors between the two deuterated proteins. 

The NSE principle - as described above - only works if the neutron spin is not affected by the scattering process (some exceptions hke complete spin-flip could be tolerated and would just replace the n-flipper). A related problem occurs if the scattering nuclei have a non-zero spin and their scattering power depends significantly on the relative orientation of nuclear and neutron spin. 

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