Abstract
The goal of the JDN22 school was to propose a progressive teaching eager to improve the expertise of students in neutron diffraction . Neutron-based techniques have indeed proved for decades to be essential tools in the investigation of condensed matter. This lecture is however concerned with inelastic neutron scattering and is thus somehow apart. In the context of this school, it should then only be considered as a brief introduction. We give simple examples along with the basics of the spectrometers, and finally useful formula for the inelastic cross sections in different situations. We strongly encourage interested readers to refer to the bibliography for more detailed information.
Highlights
Condensed matter physics has benefited tremendously from both elastic and inelastic neutron scattering techniques for more than half a century
Excitations that can be studied via neutron scattering range in energy from a few meV to a fraction of an electron volt
Inelastic neutron scattering provides crucial information about the energetic terms that appear in a model Hamiltonian
Summary
Condensed matter physics has benefited tremendously from both elastic and inelastic neutron scattering techniques for more than half a century. Since these techniques have been used to study a wide variety of materials. The main reasons arise from the unique physical properties of the neutron itself, zero electric charge, spin half. Since the energies of the neutrons with “thermal” wavelengths match the energy scales of many condensed matter systems, it is possible to use them to probe the dynamics. To give the flavor and introduce the basics of inelastic neutron scattering, it is useful to describe first simple examples, either in the context of lattice dynamics or of spin dynamics
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