Design and operating characteristic of a vacuum furnace for time-of-flight inelastic neutron scattering measurements.

We present the design and operating characteristics of a vacuum furnace used for inelastic neutron scattering experiments on a time-of-flight chopper spectrometer. The device is an actively water cooled radiant heating furnace capable of performing experiments up to 1873 K. Inelastic neutron scattering studies performed with this furnace include studies of phonon dynamics and metallic liquids. We describe the design, control, characterization, and limitations of the equipment. Further, we provide comparisons of the neutron performance of our device with commercially available options. Finally we consider upgrade paths to improve performance and reliability.

A radial collimator for a time-of-flight neutron spectrometer.

We have engineered and installed a radial collimator for use in the scattered beam of a neutron time-of-flight spectrometer at a spallation neutron source. The radial collimator may be used with both thermal and epithermal neutrons, reducing the detected scattering intensity due to material outside of the sample region substantially. The collimator is located inside of the sample chamber of the instrument, which routinely cycles between atmospheric conditions and cryogenic vacuum. The oscillation and support mechanism of the collimator allow it to be removed from use without breaking vacuum. We describe here the design and characterization of this radial collimator.

Design and operation of the wide angular-range chopper spectrometer ARCS at the Spallation Neutron Source.

The wide angular-range chopper spectrometer ARCS at the Spallation Neutron Source (SNS) is optimized to provide a high neutron flux at the sample position with a large solid angle of detector coverage. The instrument incorporates modern neutron instrumentation, such as an elliptically focused neutron guide, high speed magnetic bearing choppers, and a massive array of (3)He linear position sensitive detectors. Novel features of the spectrometer include the use of a large gate valve between the sample and detector vacuum chambers and the placement of the detectors within the vacuum, both of which provide a window-free final flight path to minimize background scattering while allowing rapid changing of the sample and sample environment equipment. ARCS views the SNS decoupled ambient temperature water moderator, using neutrons with incident energy typically in the range from 15 to 1500 meV. This range, coupled with the large detector coverage, allows a wide variety of studies of excitations in condensed matter, such as lattice dynamics and magnetism, in both powder and single-crystal samples. Comparisons of early results to both analytical and Monte Carlo simulation of the instrument performance demonstrate that the instrument is operating as expected and its neutronic performance is understood. ARCS is currently in the SNS user program and continues to improve its scientific productivity by incorporating new instrumentation to increase the range of science covered and improve its effectiveness in data collection.

Ultrathin aluminum sample cans for single crystal inelastic neutron scattering.

Single crystal inelastic neutron scattering measurements are often performed using a sample environment for controlling sample temperature. One difficulty associated with this is establishing appropriate thermal coupling from the sample to the temperature controlled portion of the sample environment. This is usually accomplished via a sample can which thermally couples the sample environment to the sample can and the sample can to the sample via an exchange gas. Unfortunately, this can will contribute additional background signal to one's measurement. We present here the design of an ultrathin aluminum sample can based upon established technology for producing aluminum beverage cans. This design minimizes parasitic sample can scattering. Neutron scattering measurements comparing a machined sample can to our beverage can design clearly indicate a large reduction in scattering intensity and texture when using the ultrathin sample can design. We also examine the possibility of using standard commercial beverage cans as sample cans.