Neutron Mirrors... What If We had Them?

[Spacescifi]

 

Would it be useful for nuclear space travel in some way? Would it boost thrust in any meaningful way?

 

Beyond that I think it would make crew life safer and would not require a shadow shield from a reactor.

 

What else can we do with neutron mirror materials if we had them?

[KSK]

They’re not exactly neutron mirrors but neutron reflectors are a thing. They work by scattering incoming neutrons, so a certain amount of them will be back scattered or reflected.

Part of the control scheme for NERVA was based on neutron reflecting drums coated on one side with a neutron absorbing material. By turning the drums appropriately, neutrons escaping the nuclear reactor could either be absorbed or reflected back into it to increase the rate of fission.

The other part of the control scheme was the fact that liquid hydrogen is a very effective neutron moderator, so the rate of fission could also be controlled by changing the propellant flow rate through the reactor.

I believe that a number of shadow shield designs also incorporate neutron reflective layers.

I’m unsure how ‘reflective’ neutron reflectors are but better reflectors would probably be massively useful in basic research. Powder neutron diffraction is a very powerful technique which complements powder X-ray diffraction, and is especially useful for studying magnetic materials (neutrons have a magnetic moment so neutron diffraction patterns can give you information about magnetic ordering in a material.)

I’m thinking that better materials for neutron optics would make a lot of solid state chemists and physicists very happy.

Source: I used single crystal X-ray diffraction a lot in my Ph.D. I knew quite a few of the shake-and-bake solid state guys down the corridor, and they did a lot of neutron diffraction work, which meant they got to go and hang out at synchrotrons and exciting Big Science facilities.

 

 

Edited June 10, 2022 by KSK

[Spacescifi]

5 minutes ago, KSK said:

They’re not exactly neutron mirrors but neutron reflectors are a thing. They work by scattering incoming neutrons, so a certain amount of them will be back scattered or reflected.

Part of the control scheme for NERVA was based on neutron reflecting drums coated on one side with a neutron absorbing material. By turning the drums appropriately, neutrons escaping the nuclear reactor could either be absorbed or reflected back into it to increase the rate of fission.

The other part of the control scheme was the fact that liquid hydrogen is a very effective neutron moderator, so the rate of fission could also be controlled by changing the propellant flow rate through the reactor.

I believe that a number of shadow shield designs also incorporate neutron reflective layers.

 

 

Cool... too bad I did not know that lol.

[kerbiloid]

Polished beryllium.

It's both a neutron reflector and a mirror.