Neutron total scattering used for the structure analysis of carbon materials

Neutron total scattering is a powerful tool for the structure analysis of disordered materials. The technique obtains a pair correlation function by Fourier transformation of the measured scattering cross-section from which it is possible to discuss real space atomic correlations in the disordered material. The spatial resolution depends on the highest scattering vector value and its statistical accuracy. A neutron total scattering instrument (NOVA) at the Japan Proton Accelerator Research Complex (J-PARC) realized measurements of a high resolution pair correlation function. Using this ability, the atomic structure of a zeolite-templated carbon (ZTC) framework, which shows only two clear Bragg peaks, was analyzed by comparing simulation results and suggests that the ZTC framework contains a wide range of carbon polygons such as hexagons, heptagons and octagons, while there are few pentagons. (author)