Question

The intensity of the initial neutron in neutron diffraction is reduced by a factor of ________

(a) 10^2

(b) 10^3

(c) 10^5

(d) 10^7

The question was posed to me by my college director while I was bunking the class.

My doubt stems from Diffraction topic in portion Solid Solutions & Crystallography of Engineering Material & Metallurgy

Answer 1

Correct option is (b) 10^3

Easiest explanation: For neutron diffraction, a nuclear reactor is used as the initial source of neutrons. However, the intensity of the initial neutron is reduced by a factor of about 10^3 in this operation. After further diffraction, the resulting beam is rather weak.