LA PHYSIQUE ET L’ÉDUCATION ( SMALL-ANGLE NEUTRON...)

Soft materials, both polymeric and biologically relevant, are rich in hydrogen. By coincidence, neutrons have the unique capability of scattering differently from hydrogen (coherent scattering length of hydrogen, bH =-0.37 × 10-12 cm) com-pared to its isotope deuterium (bD = 0.67 × 10-12 cm). As a result of this marked difference in scattering power (contrast) between native hydrogenated materi-als and their counterparts synthesized from deuterated monomer units, neu-tron scattering techniques have proven to be powerful tools for the study of soft condensed matter systems. Here, we will discuss the small-angle neu-tron scattering (SANS) technique, which is presently playing a pivota