An improved prism energy analyzer for neutrons

The effects of two improvements of an existing neutron energy analyzer consisting of stacked silicon prism rows are presented. First we tested the effect of coating the back of the prism rows with an absorbing layer to suppress neutron scattering by total reflection and by refraction at small angles. Experiments at HZB showed that this works perfectly. Second the prism rows were bent to shift the transmitted wavelength band to larger wavelengths. At HZB we showed that bending increased the transmission of neutrons with a wavelength of 4.9 Å. Experiments with a white beam at the EROS reflectometer at LLB showed that bending of the energy analyzing device to a radius of 7.9 m allows to shift the transmitted wavelength band from 0 to 9 Å to 2 to 16 Å.