High level of He-3 polarization maintained in an on-beam He-3 spin filter using SEOP

Maintaining high levels of He-3 polarization over long periods of time is important for many areas of fundamental and particle beam physics Long measurement tunes are often required in such experiments and the data quality is a function of the He-3 polarization This is the case for neutron scattering where the He-3 can be used to analyze the spin of a scattered neutron beam For neutron scattering the relatively small fluxes of polarized neutrons lead to experiment times longer than several days Consequently the Julich Centre for Neutron Science (JCNS) is developing spin-exchange optical pumping (SEOP) systems capable of polarizing the He-3 gas in place on a typical neutron instrument With the polarizer we have constructed a very high level of He-3 polarization of 80 4% +/- 1 5% was obtained and maintained with good time stability Having such high levels of polarization that are stable over time will reduce the measurement times for such experiments and eliminate time-dependent data corrections (C) 2010 Elsevier B V All rights reserved