Neutron Reflectometry: a technique for revealing emergent phenomena at interfaces in heterostructures

Neutron reflectometry (NR) has emerged as a unique technique for the investigation of structure and magnetism of thin films of both biologically relevant and magnetic materials. The advantage of NR with respect to many other surface-sensitive techniques is its sub-nanometer resolution that enables structural characterizations at the molecular level. While in the case of bio-relevant samples, NR can be used to probe thin films at buried interfaces, non-destructively, even adopting a complex sample environment. Whereas the polarized version of NR is best suited for revealing the interface magnetism with a sub-nanometer depth resolution. In this article, I will briefly describe the basic principle of NR with some applications of NR to both bio-relevant samples and magnetic heterostructures.