Investigation of magnetic materials by neutron scattering

Neutron scattering is a powerful tool to investigate magnetic order in materials, because neutrons exhibit unique characteristics such as natural spin polarization, strong penetration, and sensitivity to the light elements. Thus, the development of neutron scattering technology has tremendous bearing on the discovery of new magnetic materials and novel magnetic phenomena. We introduce here three commonly used neutron scattering techniques (powder diffraction, small angle scattering, and reflectometry), and discuss their applications in the study of magnetic materials. Since there are not many references so far on polarized neutron reflectometry in China, we will emphasis the recent progress of the quantitative determination of magnetization and its depth profile in magnetic thin films and heterostructures based on this technique.