Development of high-polarization Fe/Ge neutron polarizing supermirror: Possibility of fine-tuning of scattering length density in ion beam sputtering

The multilayer structure of Fe/Si and Fe/Ge systems fabricated by ion beam sputtering (IBS) was investigated using X-ray and polarized neutron reflectivity measurements and scanning transmission electron microscopy with energy-dispersive X-ray analysis. The obtained result revealed that the incorporation of sputtering gas particles (Ar) in the Ge layer gives rise to a marked reduction in the neutron scattering length density (SLD) and contributes to the SLD contrast between the Fe and Ge layers almost vanishing for spin-down neutrons. Bundesmann et al. (2015) have shown that the implantation of primary Ar ions backscattered at the target is responsible for the incorporation of Ar particles and that the fraction increases with increasing ion incidence angle and increasing polar emission angle. This leads to a possibility of fine-tuning of the SLD for the IBS, which is required to realize a high polarization efficiency of a neutron polarizing supermirror. Fe/Ge polarizing supermirror with m=5 fabricated under the same condition showed a spin-up reflectivity of 0.70 at the critical momentum transfer. The polarization was higher than 0.985 for the qz range where the correction for the polarization inefficiencies of the beamline works properly. The result of the polarized neutron reflectivity measurement suggests that the “magnetically-dead” layers formed at both sides of the Fe layer, together with the SLD contrast, play a critical role in determining the polarization performance of a polarizing supermirror.