ISIS Capability Spurred by Swedish Connection

The Swedish Research Council VR has committed £1.1M (14M Swedish Krona) to help boost the world leading capabilities of STFC’s ISIS neutron and muon source and generate new insights in fields ranging from engineering and earth sciences to bioscience and archaeology. ISIS will use the income to support the involvement of Swedish scientists in a range of ISIS projects over the next 4 years and to fund equipment towards completion of IMAT, a new £10M research instrument that uses a combination of neutron imaging and neutron diffraction.

 Neutron imaging uses neutrons to ‘see’ inside materials, enabling detailed 2D or 3D images to be produced. Crucially, it can see elements such as hydrogen that X-rays can’t detect. IMAT will be the first instrument at ISIS devoted to the technique of neutron imaging. Neutron diffraction involves recording how neutrons are scattered as they strike atoms in a material. Diffraction data reveals non-destructively how atoms in the material are arranged and how this relates to real-world properties, such as structural integrity.

Due online in summer 2015 (neutron imaging) and late 2016 (neutron diffraction), expertise and experience gained from IMAT will be especially valuable in view of the planned multinational European Spallation Source (ESS) to be located in Lund, Sweden and due to become operational in 2019.

Professor Robert McGreevy, Director of STFC ISIS, says: “The awarding of this grant is great news not just for ISIS but also for the international research community. We welcome the opportunity to work together to support and develop the European neutron community, particularly with the ESS currently under construction in Sweden.”

 Professor Sten Eriksson of Chalmers University of Technology, Gothenburg, who is co-ordinating Swedish activity under the new contract, says: “ISIS supports an international community of around 3000 scientists including many from Sweden. This agreement will, while enabling a major step towards completion of the ground-breaking IMAT instrument, ensure that Swedish researchers can access state-of-the-art instrumentation and expertise and add to their own skills and knowledge base.”