Developments of New Imaging Using a Pulsed Neutron Source

Abstract

  A big neutron facility has been installed at J-PARC in Japan based on a high power proton accelerator. Neutrons are delivered in the pulsed nature. This pulsed nature allows us to develop a new frontier in the neutron radiography field. It is very easy to obtain wavelength dependent images by using the time-of-flight energy-analysis method combined with the pulsed nature. The imaging data depending on the wavelength includes the information on the neutron reaction cross section which reflects the micro structure of the object and the characteristic absorption of the elements. Therefore, we can deduce the micro structure information as well as the element information of the object. For example, spatial distributions of preferred orientation, crystallite size, and strain are obtained. Furthermore, as one of the special applications of the neutron imaging, magnetic field is also obtained. Here, the recent progress of this method is introduced.