SMALL-ANGLE NEUTRON-SCATTERING EXPERIMENTS ON NANOSTRUCTURED MATTER USING CONTRAST VARIATION

By means of small angle neutron scattering (SANS) two different kinds of nanocrystalline materials have been investigated. From the experime nt one obtains information on particle size, size distributions, shape , porosity, and interparticle arrangement. By the additional use of co ntrast variation techniques it is possible to suppress parasitic scatt ering, e.g. scattering from pores that affects the results in a conven tional SANS experiment Furthermore, contrast variation allows for the specific labelling of a certain part of sample that is of special inte rest. In our study SANS experiments are presented an nanocrystalline P alladium (n-Pd) and inorganic colloidal dispersions (n-TiN), where the contrast variation serves as a tool to examine the interparticle arra ngement and the shape of the surrounding stabilising organic shell. (C ) 1997 Acta Metallurgica Inc.