A new neutron spin-echo technique with time-gradient magnetic fields

A new neutron spin-echo (NSE) technique based upon the use of time-gradient magnetic fields is proposed. It employs simple solenoid coils as spin turners, thus allowing for a construction of long coils required for the tilt coil technique or arbitrary shaped coils required for the wide-angle NSE spectrometers. An unusual dependence of the spin-echo time from the neutron wavelength (∼λ4, rather than λ3) principally allows for a significantly higher energy resolution.