Biological Applications of Neutron Microscopy

The scattering of neutrons permits to obtain structural information about diverse biological materials and processes. The impact of new intense sources of cold neutrons may revolutionize this field because it permits real-time, in vivo neutron microscopy. Featuring spatial resolution better than optical microscopy and excellent contrast, neutron microscopy provides a new imaging technique of high importance for biology and medicine. Neutron microscopy is a new instrument applicable to research in genetics, cell biology, physiology and pharmacology. New knowledge and understanding of biological function at the organ and organism level are possible, e. g. real time, high spatial resolution distribution of nitrogen. In these applications, 2-dimensional neutron detectors with spatial resolution of a few mum and high Detection Efficiency (DE) are necessary. Thus, the new generation of neutron detectors must consist of materials with a high neutron interaction cross-section. To obtain considerable improvements in spatial resolution and count rate, we will develop a new class of solid state neutron detectors using cryogenic techniques. A few cm2 neutron detector with spatial resolution of 2048x2048 pixels will be developed and incorporated into a neutron microscope.