POWGEN starts user operation

It is our pleasure to announce that POWGEN, the new ToF neutron powder diffractometer at SNS (ORNL) is about to enter the full user operation starting January 2011. JCNS contributes to the operation of the SNS owned POWGEN instrument. The commissioning of the instrument is in progress and the capability of the instrument even partially finished is sufficient to obtain unique data and we encourage everyone to submit proposals.

POWGEN is a ToF diffractometer equipped of a new detector design using shifting fibers scintillator modules. The full instrument will be equipped of 174 of these modules to cover 40m². As of today only 12 modules are installed (8% of the full detector coverage) but by the end of this year this number will double and within a three-five year plan the instrument will be build out with 22m² detector coverage. The figure to the right presents data collected on 1g of diamond (one hour data collection). Based on this pattern, we hope you will appreciate the unique resolution of this instrument which is able to collect simultaneously at various d -spacing. As far as sample environments, temperature equipments have been commissioned such as our low temperature sample changer which could reach 10K, we have also used furnace up to 1000 C. Magnet up to 16 T as well as pressure sample environments are the next in line.
As you may be aware as part of the agreement between Forschungszentrum Jülich GmbH and SNS, 10% of beamtime on this instrument will go directly to German proposals via JCNS which is a significant number of proposals as data collection time is usually short (one/two hours). Hence, POWGEN will be part of the next JCNS call for proposals on Oct. 8 2010 . German affiliated users can apply for beam time on this call. Financial support on travel and accommodation is offered by JCNS.

If you have any questions regarding feasibility or scientific cases using this instrument, we encourage to contact by email at :
Olivier Gourdon