Spatially resolved remote measurement of temperature by neutron resonance absorption

Deep penetration of neutrons into most engineering materials enables non-destructive studies of their bulk properties. The existence of sharp resonances in neutron absorption spectra enables isotopically-resolved imaging of elements present in a sample, as demonstrated by previous studies. At the same time the Doppler broadening of resonance peaks provides a method of remote measurement of temperature distributions within the same sample. This technique can be implemented at a pulsed neutron source with a short initial pulse allowing for the measurement of the energy of each registered neutron by the time of flight technique. A neutron counting detector with relatively high timing and spatial resolution is used to demonstrate the possibility to obtain temperature distributions across a 100 µm Ta foil with ~millimeter spatial resolution. Moreover, a neutron transmission measurement over a wide energy range can provide spatially resolved sample information such as temperature, elemental composition and microstructure properties simultaneously.