Review: Current progresses of small-angle neutron scattering on soft-matters investigation

A review of the recent works on soft-matters based on small-angle neutron scattering (SANS) is presented. This Review is intended to be a relatively comprehensive source for applying SANS on soft-matters investigation, including the basic principles and theory, the major characteristics of the SANS such as chain labeling and contrast variation/matching based on hydrogen/deuterium replacement, as well as corresponding typical application examples. Through the demonstration of applications in sample systems such as polymer solutions, polymer blend, semi-crystalline polymer, polymer nano-composites, hydrogel, and bio-materials, the advantages of SANS on soft-matters are demonstrated. Specifically, examples of the recent SANS investigation on spectrometer SANS-Suanni of 20 MW China Mianyang Research Reactor (CMRR) were included. As the users of neutron facilities are increasing steeply along with newly established neutron sources as well as experienced ones, this Review is intended to be of interest to the SANS, soft matter, and nano-materials science communities.