Nanodiamond-polymer composite gratings as diffractive optical elements for light and neutrons I: their fabrication and light optical diffraction properties

Abstract

We demonstrate for the first time the use of nanodiamond in constructing holographic nanoparticle-polymer composite transmission gratings with large saturated refractive index modulation amplitudes at both optical and slow-neutron wavelengths, resulting in efficient control of light and slow-neutron beams. This is so because nanodiamond possesses a high refractive index at optical wavelengths and large coherent and \small incoherent scattering cross sections with low absorption at slow-neutron wavelengths. In the first part of the work we describe the synthesis of nanodiamond, the preparation of photopolymerizable nanodiamond-polymer composite films, the construction of transmission gratings in nanodiamond-polymer composite films and light optical diffraction experiments. Experiments of slow-neutron diffraction from such gratings will be described in the second part.

Publication
in Photosensitive Materials and their Applications 2020, SPIE Proc. no 11367, 36 - 45