Spin-orbit coupling of light has come to the fore in nanooptics and plasmonics, and is a key ingredient of topological photonics and chiral quantum optics. We demonstrate a basic tool for incorporating analogous effects into neutron optics: the generation and detection of neutron beams with coupled spin and orbital angular momentum. The 3He neutron spin filters are used in conjunction with specifically oriented triangular coils to prepare neutron beams with lattices of spin-orbit correlations, as demonstrated by their spin-dependent intensity profiles. These correlations can be tailored to particular applications, such as neutron studies of topological materials.

We present a strategy for identifying and correcting for aberration effects in Spherical Neutron Polarimetry. The transformation of the neutron beam polarization vector due to scattering from a material is determined with Spherical Neutron Polarimetry. This neutron scattering technique measures the three cardinal components of the scattered polarization for any chosen cardinal direction of the incident polarization for a given Bragg reflection. As a consequence, the instrumentation required for this technique is desired to be capable of measuring the three-dimensional polarization vector over the sphere. As with all instrumentation, the field of measurement is subject to aberration which must be characterized.