Towards spatially resolved magnetic small-angle scattering studies by polarized and polarization-analyzed neutron dark-field contrast imaging.

In the past decade neutron dark-field contrast imaging has developed from a qualitative tool depicting microstructural inhomogeneities in bulk samples on a macroscopic scale of tens to hundreds of micrometers to a quantitative spatial resolved small-angle scattering instrument. While the direct macroscopic image resolution around tens of micrometers remains untouched microscopic structures have become assessable quantitatively from the nanometer to the micrometer range. Although it was found that magnetic structures provide remarkable contrast we could only recently introduce polarized neutron grating interferometric imaging. Here we present a polarized and polarization analyzed dark-field contrast method for spatially resolved small-angle scattering studies of magnetic microstructures. It is demonstrated how a polarization analyzer added to a polarized neutron grating interferometer does not disturb the interferometric measurements but allows to separate and measure spin-flip and non-spin-flip small-angle scattering and thus also the potential for a distinction of nuclear and different magnetic contributions in the analyzed small-angle scattering. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]