  Recently strong electric fields (up to 10^9 V/cm) have been discovered, which
affect the neutrons moving in noncentrosymmetric crystals. Such fields allow
new polarization phenomena in neutron diffraction and optics and provide, for
instance, a new feasibility of a search for the neutron electric dipole moment
(EDM). A series of experiments was carried out in a few last years on study of
the dynamical diffraction of polarized neutrons in thick (1-10 cm) quartz
crystals, using the forward diffraction beam and Bragg angles close to 90^0. As
well new neutron optics phenomena were investigated. The feasibility of
experiment on a search for neutron EDM using Laue diffraction in crystals
without a center of symmetry was tested at the reactors: WWR-M in Gatchina and
HFR in Grenoble. It was shown that the sensitivity can reach (3 - 6)\cdot
10^{-25}e cm per day for the available quartz crystal and cold neutron beam
flux.
