Anomalous neutron nuclear-magnetic interference spectroscopy

Chuliang Fu; Phum Siriviboon; Artittaya Boonkird; Michael Landry; Kiran Mak; Mouyang Cheng; Jeffrey Lynn; Chen Li; Weiwei Xie; Avishek Maity; Masaaki Matsuda; Mingda Li

doi:10.1016/j.mtphys.2025.101777

Anomalous neutron nuclear-magnetic interference spectroscopy

Chuliang Fu, Phum Siriviboon, Artittaya Boonkird, Michael Landry, Kiran Mak, Mouyang Cheng, Jeffrey Lynn, Chen Li, Weiwei Xie, Avishek Maity, Masaaki Matsuda, Mingda Li

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Abstract

The electron–phonon interaction plays a critical role in materials’ electrical, thermal, optical, and superconducting properties. However, measuring the phonon mode-resolved electron–phonon interaction has been challenging. Here we propose neutron-scattering-based Anomalous Neutron nUclear-Magnetic Interference Spectroscopy (ANUBIS), where the co-existence of neutron nuclear scattering and magnetic scattering leads to anomalous dynamical structure factor under the presence of the electron–phonon interaction. Such anomalous structure factor is linear in electron–phonon coupling constant at the phonon wavevector, and is directly proportional to the momentum and energy-resolved dielectric function. The experimental configuration can be achieved using existing polarized inelastic neutron scattering setup, and an order-of-magnitude estimate shows the viability to observe the anomalous scattering signal is around 10⁻⁴ to 10⁻³ relative to phonon scattering, which is examined through the preliminary experiments and achievable at emerging neutron facilities. Our proposal offers an alternative neutron-based metrology to probe the crucial electronic properties.

Original language	English
Article number	101777
Journal	Materials Today Physics
Volume	57
DOIs	https://doi.org/10.1016/j.mtphys.2025.101777
State	Published - Sep 2025

Funding

The authors thank Rebecca Dally and Yao Wang for the insightful discussions. CF acknowledges support from the US Department of Energy (DOE) , Office of Science (SC), USA , Basic Energy Sciences (BES), USA , Award No. DE-SC0020148 . PS acknowledges support from DOE, USA Award No. DE-SC0021940 . CL acknowledges the support from DOE, USA DE-SC0023874 , WX thanks support from DOE, USA DE-SC0023648 . AB acknowledges the support from the National Science Foundation (NSF), USA Convergence Accelerator Award No. 2235945 . A portion of this research used resources at the High Flux Isotope Reactor, a DOE Office of Science User Facility operated by the Oak Ridge National Laboratory. The beam time was allocated to HB-1 on proposal number IPTS-32800.1. ML is partially supported by the Class of 1947 Career Development Chair and support from R Wachnik.

Keywords

Electron-phonon interactions
Neutron scattering
Quantum theory

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10.1016/j.mtphys.2025.101777

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title = "Anomalous neutron nuclear-magnetic interference spectroscopy",

abstract = "The electron–phonon interaction plays a critical role in materials{\textquoteright} electrical, thermal, optical, and superconducting properties. However, measuring the phonon mode-resolved electron–phonon interaction has been challenging. Here we propose neutron-scattering-based Anomalous Neutron nUclear-Magnetic Interference Spectroscopy (ANUBIS), where the co-existence of neutron nuclear scattering and magnetic scattering leads to anomalous dynamical structure factor under the presence of the electron–phonon interaction. Such anomalous structure factor is linear in electron–phonon coupling constant at the phonon wavevector, and is directly proportional to the momentum and energy-resolved dielectric function. The experimental configuration can be achieved using existing polarized inelastic neutron scattering setup, and an order-of-magnitude estimate shows the viability to observe the anomalous scattering signal is around 10−4 to 10−3 relative to phonon scattering, which is examined through the preliminary experiments and achievable at emerging neutron facilities. Our proposal offers an alternative neutron-based metrology to probe the crucial electronic properties.",

keywords = "Electron-phonon interactions, Neutron scattering, Quantum theory",

author = "Chuliang Fu and Phum Siriviboon and Artittaya Boonkird and Michael Landry and Kiran Mak and Mouyang Cheng and Jeffrey Lynn and Chen Li and Weiwei Xie and Avishek Maity and Masaaki Matsuda and Mingda Li",

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year = "2025",

month = sep,

doi = "10.1016/j.mtphys.2025.101777",

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volume = "57",

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T1 - Anomalous neutron nuclear-magnetic interference spectroscopy

AU - Fu, Chuliang

AU - Siriviboon, Phum

AU - Boonkird, Artittaya

AU - Landry, Michael

AU - Mak, Kiran

AU - Cheng, Mouyang

AU - Lynn, Jeffrey

AU - Li, Chen

AU - Xie, Weiwei

AU - Maity, Avishek

AU - Matsuda, Masaaki

AU - Li, Mingda

PY - 2025/9

Y1 - 2025/9

N2 - The electron–phonon interaction plays a critical role in materials’ electrical, thermal, optical, and superconducting properties. However, measuring the phonon mode-resolved electron–phonon interaction has been challenging. Here we propose neutron-scattering-based Anomalous Neutron nUclear-Magnetic Interference Spectroscopy (ANUBIS), where the co-existence of neutron nuclear scattering and magnetic scattering leads to anomalous dynamical structure factor under the presence of the electron–phonon interaction. Such anomalous structure factor is linear in electron–phonon coupling constant at the phonon wavevector, and is directly proportional to the momentum and energy-resolved dielectric function. The experimental configuration can be achieved using existing polarized inelastic neutron scattering setup, and an order-of-magnitude estimate shows the viability to observe the anomalous scattering signal is around 10−4 to 10−3 relative to phonon scattering, which is examined through the preliminary experiments and achievable at emerging neutron facilities. Our proposal offers an alternative neutron-based metrology to probe the crucial electronic properties.

AB - The electron–phonon interaction plays a critical role in materials’ electrical, thermal, optical, and superconducting properties. However, measuring the phonon mode-resolved electron–phonon interaction has been challenging. Here we propose neutron-scattering-based Anomalous Neutron nUclear-Magnetic Interference Spectroscopy (ANUBIS), where the co-existence of neutron nuclear scattering and magnetic scattering leads to anomalous dynamical structure factor under the presence of the electron–phonon interaction. Such anomalous structure factor is linear in electron–phonon coupling constant at the phonon wavevector, and is directly proportional to the momentum and energy-resolved dielectric function. The experimental configuration can be achieved using existing polarized inelastic neutron scattering setup, and an order-of-magnitude estimate shows the viability to observe the anomalous scattering signal is around 10−4 to 10−3 relative to phonon scattering, which is examined through the preliminary experiments and achievable at emerging neutron facilities. Our proposal offers an alternative neutron-based metrology to probe the crucial electronic properties.

KW - Electron-phonon interactions

KW - Neutron scattering

KW - Quantum theory

UR - https://www.scopus.com/pages/publications/105011864541

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DO - 10.1016/j.mtphys.2025.101777

M3 - Article

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SN - 2542-5293

VL - 57

JO - Materials Today Physics

JF - Materials Today Physics

M1 - 101777

ER -

Anomalous neutron nuclear-magnetic interference spectroscopy

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