Neutron Reflectometer with Polarization Option at the Budapest Neutron Centre

Abstract

The ever increasing need for product advancement and miniaturization keeps thin film assemblies, membranes, magnetic and non-magnetic multilayer and patterned heterostructures in the limelight of materials science and technological development. A number of thin film and surface characterization methods have emerged recently to meet the new challenges. The increased interest in magnetic thin film analytical instruments – mainly triggered by the discovery of the giant magnetoresistance and related phenomena [1] – resulted in a boom of Polarized Neutron Reflectometry studies as well as in construction of a number of new neutron reflectometers with polarization option. This article reports on the design, construction and operation parameters and first example uses of the “Grazing Incidence Neutron Apparatus” (GINA) a recently installed neutron reflectometer at the Budapest Neutron Centre (BNC) in Hungary.

Acknowledgments

The GINA team is grateful to Prof. H. Dosch, former director at the Max-Planck-Institut für Metallforschung for his continued interest in the GINA project and for the transfer of a number of components of EVA, a former neutron reflectometer operated by the Max-Planck-Institut für Metallforschung at the Institut Laue-Langevin, Grenoble, France. This work was supported by the National Office for Research and Technology of Hungary and the Hungarian National Science Fund (OTKA) under contracts NAP-VENEUS and K 62272, respectively.