Contrast variation small-angle neutron scattering (CV-SANS) is a powerful tool to evaluate the structure of multi-component systems by decomposing scattering intensities I measured with different scattering contrasts into partial scattering functions S of self- and cross-correlations between components. The measured I contains a measurement error, ΔI, and ΔI results in an uncertainty of partial scattering functions, ΔS. However, the error propagation from ΔI to ΔS has not been quantitatively clarified. In this work, we have established deterministic and statistical approaches to determine ΔS from ΔI. We have applied the two methods to (i) computational data of a core-shell sphere and experimental CV-SANS data of (ii) clay/polyethylene glycol (PEG) aqueous solutions and (iii) polyrotaxane solutions, and have successfully estimated the errors of S. The quantitative error estimation of S offers us a strategy to optimize the combination of scattering contrasts to minimize error propagation.
Cite
@article{arxiv.2406.00311,
title = {Error evaluation of partial scattering functions obtained from contrast variation small-angle neutron scattering},
author = {Koichi Mayumi and Tatsuro Oda and Shinya Miyajima and Ippei Obayashi and Kazuaki Tanaka},
journal= {arXiv preprint arXiv:2406.00311},
year = {2025}
}