Compact, portable single-crystal neutron diffractometer

Although thermal and cold neutron scattering is widely used and is critical for success in many areas of materials science and engineering, relatively low neutron fluxes severely limit applications of not only laboratory neutrons generators, but also large national neutron facilities. State-of-the-art thermal and cold neutron sources are large expensive national facilities, which serve diverse community of scientific and industrial users. The constant need to improve the instruments performance, stems from the fact that neutron methods are gaining in popularity, and becoming more and more powerful, while new neutron sources are not being constructed to keep pace with the developments and needs of the scientific community. Small research reactors at universities and National Labs, and laboratory-based neutron generators, are necessary not only for education and training, but also when samples cannot be transported to other facilities. However, the standard neutron techniques, which were developed for high-flux facilities, require much higher efficiencies to be used effectively with the low fluxes of small sources. Thus, the efficient use of neutron sources, such as with our proposed compact, portable single-crystal diffractometer, is important for the progress and broader use of these neutron techniques. We propose to design and demonstrate a compact, portable single-crystal neutron diffractometer, which will enable fast characterization of small samples. Our proposed device will be designed with off-the-shelf parts in a similar manner as the instrument CYCLOPS at ILL with eight flat detectors surrounding a sample in an octagonal shape. Our proposed device will be capable of being placed on available neutron beamlines at large neutron facilities such as SNS or HFIR as well as small research reactors at universities and laboratory neutron sources. Our diffractometer will enable very fast screening of new samples as they are developed. The outcome of our project would be the demonstration of a portable, compact single-crystal diffractometer with integrated software to characterize small samples. Our proposed instrument could be installed at unused beamlines at national facilities or small neutron sources and then moved into storage when not in use. The development of our new instrument will take a step in bringing neutron scattering techniques to a broader audience that has mostly relied on the availability and ease-of-use of laboratory X-ray diffractometers.