Diffraction of very cold neutrons at phase gratings

Abstract

We report extensive experiments on the diffraction of very cold neutrons ( λ ≈ 100 A ̊ ) at large-area transmission phase gratings with grating constants d = 2 μm and d = 1 μm, respectively. The experimental results are compared with Fresnel-Kirchhoff calculations showing agreement in great detail. Using phase gratings it is possible to shift intensities between different diffraction orders, thus making them very useful for other neutron-optics experiments at low energies. Also, the excellent manufacturing precision of our transmission phase gratings meets the requirements for such experiments like very-cold-neutron interferometry.