2009 Volume 19 Issue 3 Pages 140-145
We have investigated suitable magnetic field distribution to polarize neutrons based only on the electromagnetic interaction between a neutron magnetic moment and magnetic field, and found out a quadrupole field was the most suitable among simple multipole fields. Then we constructed a quadrupole magnet with a Halbach magnetic circuit as the neutron polarizing device. A cold neutron polarizing experiment of the quadrupole magnet was performed at the beamline C3-1-2-1 (NOP) of JRR-3 at JAEA. By passing through the aperture of the quadrupole magnet, positive and negative polarity neutrons are accelerated in opposite directions and spatially separated. Therefore, we extracted the one-spin component and analyzed its polarization degree. As a result very high neutron polarization degree P=0.9993±0.0025 was obtained. Then the quadrupole magnet was installed into the polarized neutron focusing geometry SANS instrument SANS-J-II of JRR-3. The instrument performance was enhanced by about 10 times compared with the case with the magnetic supermirror as the neutron polarizing device. The details are shown and discussed.
