Announcements

Commissioning of instruments

We are hopeful of getting the operating licences for our first 2 instruments (Echidna and Wombat) very soon. As users may recall, this was one of two preconditions for scheduling approved experiments from last year’s proposal call, the other being a publishable schedule for the operation of OPAL itself.

Once we have run some of these approved user experiments, we intend to make the next call for user proposals on at least four instruments, the four diffractometers (Echidna, Wombat, Kowari and Koala), and maybe one of the cold-neutron instruments Platypus or Quokka. We will keep users posted about these milestones and further developments via our website and specific e-mails to the ANBUG membership.

ANSTO – AINSE Neutron School on Materials, 20-25 July 2008

Our school will provide training for newcomers to neutron scattering focussing on important classes of structural and functional materials, e.g. concrete and geopolymers, magnetic materials, soft matter and biomaterials, and metals. Some 30 participants will not only have lectures, but also practical sessions on the instruments and data analysis on neutron techniques available at ANSTO, i.e. powder diffraction, single-crystal diffraction, small-angle scattering, reflectometry, and inelastic scattering using three-axis spectrometers.

Further details about the school can be found on

www.ansto.gov.au/bragg/science/conferences_and_workshops/neutron_school_08.html.