ABSTRACT
This chapter looks at how neutrons can be used to investigate thermoelectric materials. It explains to elastic scattering, known as Bragg diffraction, and inelastic scattering describing the dynamics of atoms. The chapter presents central elements of theory and gives recent examples related to host–guest structures, where neutron investigations have been undertaken. Cold and thermal neutrons on the other hand have the advantage of having energies and the momentum vectors in the same order of magnitude as phonons. Neutron investigations can provide information on the microscopic level about atomic dynamics, which can help understand the observed macroscopic observations. The dominating neutron interaction with matter is scattering processes, in which the momentum and energy of the neutron can change. In an elastic scattering event, the neutron neither loses nor gains energy. In a powder diffraction experiment, a large number of randomly oriented crystallites scatter a beam of neutrons.
