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Kumada, Takayuki; Iwahara, Daisuke*

Isotope News, (798), p.26 - 27, 2025/04

no abstracts in English

Nanostructure analysis of composite materials using polarized neutrons and polarized protons

Kumada, Takayuki

Shiki, 63, p.2 - 5, 2024/07

We introduce recent studies of spin-contrast-variation neutron scatterings, which utilizes the property that scattering power of neutron against proton remarkably depends on their relative spin directions, to reveal nanostructure of composite materials.

Analyses of hierarchical structures in SBR rubber by using contrast-variation SANS; Effects of a silane coupling agent

Nakanishi, Yohei*; Shibata, Motoki*; Sawada, Satoshi*; Kondo, Hiroaki*; Motokawa, Ryuhei; Kumada, Takayuki; Yamamoto, Katsuhiro*; Mita, Kazuki*; Miyazaki, Tsukasa*; Takenaka, Mikihito*

Polymer, 306, p.127209_1 - 127209_7, 2024/06

https://doi.org/10.1016/j.polymer.2024.127209

Interpenetration of rubber and silane coupling agent on an inorganic substrate revealed by spin-contrast-variation neutron reflectivity

Kumada, Takayuki; Iwahara, Daisuke*; Nishitsuji, Shotaro*; Akutsu, Kazuhiro*; Miura, Daisuke; Motokawa, Ryuhei; Sugita, Tsuyoshi; Torikai, Naoya*; Amino, Naoya*; Oku, Takayuki; et al.

Journal of Physical Chemistry C, 128(21), p.8797 - 8802, 2024/05

https://doi.org/10.1021/acs.jpcc.4c00963

We elucidated the entanglement of polybutadiene and silane coupling agent (SCA) molecules bound to Si substrates using spin-contrast-variation (SCV) neutron reflectivity (NR). In an annealed integral blend film of polybutadiene and SCA, a SCA layer generated on the Si substrate was composed of 70 vol. percent SCA molecules extended perpendicularly from the silicon substrate and entangled with 30 vol. percent polybutadiene molecules. By contrast, in an SCA-precoated polybutadiene film, the SCA-precoated layer is composed of densely packed SCA molecules forming crystal-like structure, and thus did not become entangled with the postcoated polybutadiene molecules. This poor entanglement resulted in poor binding between polybutadiene and Si substrate.

Upgrade of the small-angle neutron scattering diffractometer SANS-J at JRR-3

Kumada, Takayuki; Motokawa, Ryuhei; Oba, Yojiro; Nakagawa, Hiroshi; Sekine, Yurina; Micheau, C.; Ueda, Yuki; Sugita, Tsuyoshi; Birumachi, Atsushi; Sasaki, Miki; et al.

Journal of Applied Crystallography, 56(6), p.1776 - 1783, 2023/12

https://doi.org/10.1107/S1600576723009731

The combination of the existing position-sensitive photomultiplier and the He main detector with focusing devices, and the newly installed front detectors in SANS-J at JRR-3 covers small-angle neutron scattering signals in the range of the magnitude of the scattering vector Q from 0.002 to 6 nm-1 gaplessly with three standard device layouts. The installation of the front detector and a graphical user interface system largely improved the usability of SANS-J.

Polarized neutrons observed nanometer-thick crystalline ice plates in frozen glucose solution

Kumada, Takayuki; Nakagawa, Hiroshi; Miura, Daisuke; Sekine, Yurina; Motokawa, Ryuhei; Hiroi, Kosuke; Inamura, Yasuhiro; Oku, Takayuki; Oishi, Kazuki*; Morikawa, Toshiaki*; et al.

Journal of Physical Chemistry Letters (Internet), 14(34), p.7638 - 7643, 2023/08

https://doi.org/10.1021/acs.jpclett.3c01448

The structure of nano-ice crystals in rapidly frozen glucose solution was elucidated by using spin-contrast-variation small-angle neutron scattering, which distinguishes the nano-ice crystal signal from the frozen amorphous solution signal by the polarization-dependent neutron scattering. The analysis revealed that the nano-ice crystals form a planar structure with a diameter exceeding tens of nanometers and a thickness of 1 nm, which is close to the critical nucleation size. This result suggests that the glucose molecules are preferentially bound to a specific face of nano-ice crystals, and then block the crystal growth perpendicular to that face.

Structure analysis of asymmetric interface using spin-contrast-variation neutron reflectometry

Kumada, Takayuki; Miura, Daisuke*; Akutsu, Kazuhiro*; Oku, Takayuki; Torikai, Naoya*; Niizeki, Tomotake*

Hamon, 32(4), p.165 - 168, 2022/11

https://doi.org/10.5611/hamon.32.4_165

We demonstrated the advantage of spin-contrast-variation neutron reflectometry on the structure analysis of buried interface between resin and porous silica layers. The interface structure was not reproduced by the normal Gaussian model, but by the asymmetric interface model where crosslinked polymer chains neither permeate the pore nor follow the surface roughness of the silica layer.

Mass-resolved momentum imaging of three dichloroethylene isomers by femtosecond laser-induced coulomb explosion

Wada, Yoriko*; Akagi, Hiroshi*; Kumada, Takayuki; Itakura, Ryuji*; Wakabayashi, Tomonari*

Photochem (Internet), 2(3), p.798 - 809, 2022/09

https://doi.org/10.3390/photochem2030051

Coulomb explosion experiments using 60 fs laser pulses were conducted for structural characterization of three dichloroethylene isomers. Under laser intensity at 1.8 10 W/cm, mass-resolved momentum imaging (MRMI) for selected fragment ions of Cl and C revealed different patterns for the three isomers. The C ion fragmented from multiply charged trans-1,2-DCE was forced to leave perpendicularly to the direction of the laser polarization, due to recoil forces from adjacent cations. In contrast, the fast ions of C from cis-1,2-DCE exhibited an isotropic distribution, whereas the fast ions of C from 1,1-DCE recoiled along the laser polarization together with the slow C ions, and thereby distinction of the three isomers was demonstrated. Coulomb explosion occurs predominantly at specific orientation, which is useful for potential applications of MRMI analysis to molecular structure assays.

Nanoscopic structure of borosilicate glass with additives for nuclear waste vitrification

Motokawa, Ryuhei; Kaneko, Koji; Oba, Yojiro; Nagai, Takayuki; Okamoto, Yoshihiro; Kobayashi, Taishi*; Kumada, Takayuki; Heller, W. T.*

Journal of Non-Crystalline Solids, 578, p.121352_1 - 121352_7, 2022/02

https://doi.org/10.1016/j.jnoncrysol.2021.121352

Development of spin-contrast-variation neutron powder diffractometry for extracting the structure factor of hydrogen atoms

Miura, Daisuke*; Kumada, Takayuki; Sekine, Yurina; Motokawa, Ryuhei; Nakagawa, Hiroshi; Oba, Yojiro; Ohara, Takashi; Takata, Shinichi; Hiroi, Kosuke; Morikawa, Toshiaki*; et al.

Journal of Applied Crystallography, 54(2), p.454 - 460, 2021/04

AA2020-0724.pdf:2.05MB

https://doi.org/10.1107/S1600576721000303

We developed a spin-contrast-variation neutron powder diffractometry technique that extracts the structure factor of hydrogen atoms, namely, the contribution of hydrogen atoms to a crystal structure factor. Crystals of L-glutamic acid were dispersed in a dpolystyrene matrix containing 4-methacryloyloxy-2,2,6,6,-tetramethyl-1-piperidinyloxy (TEMPO methacrylate) to polarize their proton spins dynamically. The intensities of the diffraction peaks of the sample changed according to the proton polarization, and the structure factor of the hydrogen atoms was extracted from the proton-polarization dependent intensities. This technique is expected to enable analyses of the structures of hydrogen-containing materials that are difficult to determine with conventional powder diffractometry.