X-Ray and Neutron Reflectivity

The reflection of and neutrons from surfaces has existed as an x-rays exp- imental for almost it is in the last technique fifty Nevertheless, only years. decade that these methods have become as of enormously popular probes This the surfaces and interfaces. to be due to of several appears convergence of intense different circumstances. These include the more n- availability be measured orders tron and sources that can over (so reflectivity x-ray many of and the much weaker surface diffuse can now also be magnitude scattering of thin films and studied in some the detail); growing importance multil- basic the realization of the ers in both and technology research; important which in the of surfaces and and role roughness plays properties interfaces; the of statistical models to characterize the of finally development topology its and its characterization from on roughness, dependence growth processes The of and to surface scattering experiments. ability x-rays neutro4s study four five orders of in scale of surfaces over to magnitude length regardless their and also their to ability probe environment, temperature, pressure, etc. , makes these the choice for buried interfaces often probes preferred obtaining information about the microstructure of often in statistical a global surfaces, the local This is manner to complementary imaging microscopy techniques, of such studies in the literature witnessed the veritable by explosion published the last few Thus these lectures will useful for over a resource years.

The book is the first comprehensive introduction to x-ray and neutron reflectivity techniques and illustrates them with many examples. After a pedagogical introduction, the interplay between the statistics of rough surfaces and interfaces and the scattering of radiation is considered in detail. Specular reflectivity and diffuse scattering are discussed next. The approximations are rigorously introduced and many experimental effects are discussed. In the case of neutron reflectivity, particular attention is paid to the reflectivity of polarized neutrons from magnetic multilayers, which allows the determination of in-plane magnetization profiles. Many applications are reviewed in the second part: rough surfaces, interfaces and multilayers, liquid surfaces and soft-condensed matter, and thin polymer films. In each case the underlying physics is first introduced, then specific experimental methods are described. The book addresses researchers and graduate students.