Neutron Diffraction at a High-Flux Reactor

Abstract

UP to the present, all neutron diffraction studies in Great Britain and practically all structural studies elsewhere have been carried out with neutron beams from reactors which have a peak flux of a few times 10¹² neutrons per sq. cm. per sec.; for example, at Harwell the reactor Bepo has been used for this work. We have now made preliminary measurements with a spectrometer at the research reactor Dido, where a peak unperturbed flux of about 5 × 10¹³ neutrons per sq. cm. per sec. is available. We achieve in practice an increase of about twenty times the intensity of our neutron beam, and this increase is available for reducing proportionately the size of the sample for study. The advantage of this, for solidstate studies with neutron beams, can be seen in two ways.