Research Instruments at the Budapest Neutron Centre [antikvár]

Preface This volume as a handbook on a few neutron beam instruments aims to provide a study-aid for the training course at the Budapest Neutron Centre (BNC). In general, training schools at European neutron centres have been organized since nearly 40 years (Berlin 1980, Oxford 1987) and nowadays they are becoming more and more popular. Approximately 400 early career European researchers receive training via one or more of the various schools each year. There is a healthy oversubscription for the schools, suggesting that they are in high demand, and that there is a large number of European researchers seeking training in neutron techniques. The Budapest neutron school was one of the first to offer - besides theoretical lectures - also hands-on-training on real working neutron spectrometers. The first such event was held in 1998 as an Austro-Hungarian training course. A real international school was first organised on the occasion of the 2nd European Conference on Neutron Scattering in 1999. 120 (!) participants attended the school and a booklet of Lecture Notes was also edited1. This volume containing lecture materials in various fields and techniques in neutron scattering from 12 renowned scientists has got to be quite popular - after several reprinting nearly 3000 copies were distributed. Since 2001 we have decided to extend the school into a training course, and offer the possibilities of the cold and thermal neutron beam instruments at the Budapest Research Reactor for hands-on-training for the European user community. This training - like most of the other schools at neutron facilities - has got financial support within the Framework Programmes of the European Union (mostly to cover mobility expenses of students). In this way our school has become a regular event, now organised every year, and it has got the name CETS - Central-European Training School, to respond indeed, to the situation that most of the students are coming from our neighbour countries. For CETS 2017 we have decided to restructure somewhat the usual one-week programme: instead of mixing lectures and instrumental training, now the lectures are condensed to the first two days, which is followed by the experimental part with extended exercises on the selected instruments. In this way CETS 2017 provides insight into the basics of neutron physics as well as the experimental procedures. The lectures will cover the commonly used beam techniques, such as neutron diffraction, small-angle scattering, reflectometry, triple axis spectroscopy, radiography, prompt gamma activation analysis, as well as time-of-flight spectroscopy and neutron polarisation. This booklet is focusing on practical problems related to the experimental work to be carried out during the training course. The short introduction gives a basic guidance on neutron properties and application of neutron beams for studies on structure and dynamics in condensed matter research. A very practical chapter outlines the basics of radioprotection indispensable for performing experiments in a nuclear reactor environment. The remaining part describes those instruments at BNC, which make part of the hands-on training programme. An insight into data interpretation is also given. Dr. László Rosta Founder of CETS 'http://www.iaea.org/inis/collection/NCLCollectionStore/_Public/30/054/30054765.pdf