The new high resolution ultra small-angle neutron scattering instrument at the High Flux Reactor in Grenoble

Abstract

In 1998, the combined Interferometer and Ultra Small Angle Neutron Scattering (USANS) instrument S18 at the 58 MW High Flux Reactor at the Institute Laue-Langevin in Grenoble (France) started operation. The instrument has been upgraded to allow more advanced neutron optics experiments for fundamental, nuclear and condensed matter physics. The new supermirror guide along with the two channel cut silicon perfect crystals, configured as an advanced high resolution Bonse-Hart camera, provides optimal intensity conditions. A large range of wavelengths is accessible by variations of the Bragg angle and by using different reflecting planes of a properly cut silicon monochromator block in combination with different channel-cut analyzer crystals. The fine adjustment analyzer system is achieved by an advanced piezo drive, which has an accuracy of 0.036 seconds of arc. The basic features of the USANS camera, which takes advantage of a new tail suppression method, and the results of various test measurements concerning intensities, long term stability and the accessible wavelength range will be presented. A high resolution position sensitive detector can either be used to analyze beam profiles or to perform neutron radiography experiments.

Supercritical Fluids in Confined Geometries

“…The maximum Q value of the SANS spectra was determined by the cut-off acceptance angle of the pressure cell, which limited the minimum pore diameter that could be investigated in this system to about 30 Å. Scattering patterns of coal were measured using a 2D 1 m  1 m detector, corrected for instrumental background as well as detector efficiency and put on absolute scale (neutron cross section per unit volume I(Q) in units of cm À1 ) using precalibrated secondary standards. USANS measurements were performed at the Institut Laue-Langevin using the double-crystal (Bonse-Hart geometry) USANS instrument S18 [85]. The range of scattering vectors investigated using this USANS instrumentation was 10 À5 to 10 À3 Å À1 .…”

Hierarchical structure of niobate nanosheets in aqueous solution

“…Here q is the magnitude of scattering vector defined by q = (4 / )sin( /2), where and are the wavelength of the incident beam and the scattering angle, respectively. USANS measurements were conducted using the S18 spectrometer at the Institute Laue-Langevin in Grenoble, France (Hainbuchner et al, 2000) and the PNO spectrometer at the research reactor JRR-3 at the Japan Atomic Energy Agency (JAEA) in Tokai, Japan (Aizawa & Tomimitsu, 1995), both of which are based on the Bonse-Hart-type double-crystal setup. S18 utilizes the 220 reflection of the Si monochromator crystal in order to select incident neutrons with = 1.9 Å , while PNO utilizes Si 111 and = 2.0 Å .…”

E. coli imprinted nano-structured silica micro-granules by spray drying: Optimization of calcination temperature

“…Small-angle X-ray scattering (SAXS) measurements on the virgin colloidal dispersions were performed using a laboratory based SAXS instrument equipped with a position sensitive detector and the sample to detector distance was ∼1 m. To obtain small-angle neutron scattering (SANS) data of the assembled granules over a wide scattering-vector (q) range, which is an essential requirement in probing such hierarchically structured granules, the scattering experiments were performed at three different SANS facilities, namely, KWS-1 and KWS-3 (at JCNS, FRM-II, Garching, Germany) [22] and S18 (at ILL, Grenoble, France) [23]. Scattering data over a wide range of wave-vector transfer (0.0002-2 nm −1 ) were obtained using the above facilities after performing some preliminary experiments using the SANS instruments [24,25] at DHRUVA, Trombay, India.…”