Prismatic analyser concept for neutron spectrometers.

Developments in modern neutron spectroscopy have led to typical sample sizes decreasing from few cm to several mm in diameter samples. We demonstrate how small samples together with the right choice of analyser and detector components makes distance collimation an important concept in crystal analyser spectrometers. We further show that this opens new possibilities where neutrons with different energies are reflected by the same analyser but counted in different detectors, thus improving both energy resolution and total count rate compared to conventional spectrometers. The technique can readily be combined with advanced focussing geometries and with multiplexing instrument designs. We present a combination of simulations and data showing three different energies simultaneously reflected from one analyser. Experiments were performed on a cold triple axis instrument and on a prototype inverse geometry Time-of-flight spectrometer installed at PSI, Switzerland, and shows excellent agreement with the predictions. Typical improvements will be 2.0 times finer resolution and a factor of 1.9 in flux gain compared to a focussing Rowland geometry, or of 3.3 times finer resolution and a factor of 2.4 in flux gain compared to a single flat analyser slab.

Quantum spin correlations through the superconducting-to-normal phase transition in electron-doped superconducting Pr0.88LaCe0.12CuO4-delta.

The quantum spin fluctuations of the S = 1/2 Cu ions are important in determining the physical properties of high-transition-temperature (high T(c)) copper oxide superconductors, but their possible role in the electron pairing of superconductivity remains an open question. The principal feature of the spin fluctuations in optimally doped high-T(c) superconductors is a well defined magnetic resonance whose energy (E(R)) tracks T(c) (as the composition is varied) and whose intensity develops like an order parameter in the superconducting state. We show that the suppression of superconductivity and its associated condensation energy by a magnetic field in the electron-doped high-T(c) superconductor Pr(0.88)LaCe(0.12)CuO(4-delta) (T(c) = 24 K), is accompanied by the complete suppression of the resonance and the concomitant emergence of static antiferromagnetic order. Our results demonstrate that the resonance is intimately related to the superconducting condensation energy, and thus suggest that it plays a role in the electron pairing and superconductivity.

Neutron-spin resonance in the optimally electron-doped superconductor Nd1.85Ce0.15CuO4-delta.

We use inelastic neutron scattering to probe magnetic excitations of an optimally electron-doped superconductor Nd1.85Ce0.15CuO4-delta above and below its superconducting transition temperature Tc=25 K. In addition to gradually opening a spin pseudogap at the antiferromagnetic ordering wave vector Q=(1/2,1/2,0), the effect of superconductivity is to form a resonance centered also at Q=(1/2,1/2,0) but at energies above the spin pseudogap. The intensity of the resonance develops like a superconducting order parameter, similar to those for hole-doped superconductors and electron-doped Pr0.88LaCe0.12CuO4. The resonance is therefore a general phenomenon of cuprate superconductors, and must be fundamental to the mechanism of high-Tc superconductivity.