Remarks on extinction effects in MgF2 single crystals

Extinction effects are very often severe in ionic single crystals. Corrections for these effects depend mainly on theoretical models which describe primary extinction effects only poorly. In order to reduce the primary extinction, different thermal treatments were applied to MgF₂ samples. γ-ray rocking curves were recorded to visualize the effects of these thermal treatments. The aptitude of a sample to give the best results in neutron and X-ray intensity measurements was decided on the basis of the shape of the γ-ray rocking curve profiles. The isotropic mosaic spread extinction parameter values obtained from γ-ray, X-ray and neutron techniques were of the same order of magnitude.