From Oak Ridge Lab: “Where atoms are, and what they do”
Neutron Scattering for Novices workshop fascinates scientists with a newfound analytical tool
May 23, 2012
Agatha Bardoel
“A 100-million-year old fossil from Antarctica’s tropical age, revealed by neutron imaging, fascinated participants at the Neutron Scattering for Novices workshop at Oak Ridge National Laboratory’s Spallation Neutron Source (SNS), held May 16.
Spallation Neutron Source. Aerial view of SNS
The TOPAZ detector array tank shown in 2009, before its installation in the Spallation Neutron Source’s target building. TOPAZ is one of the SNS instruments under the Office of Science’s just completed SING project.
Robert McGreevy, ORNL’s deputy associate lab director for Neutron Sciences showed the geological sample as an example of what advanced neutron techniques can do — in this case, nondestructively see what’s inside an ancient fossil.
The workshop, organized by the University of Tennessee-ORNL Joint Institute for Neutron Sciences (JINS), introduced neutron scattering techniques to scientists who have little or no experience with neutrons in research. Kelly Beierschmitt, associate laboratory director for Neutron Sciences at Oak Ridge National Laboratory, invited faculty members, research scientists, and postdocs, as well as senior Ph.D. students, to become neutron users at facilities such as the SNS and the High Flux Isotope Reactor (HFIR) at ORNL.
Scientists from across the United States and one Chinese university attended the one-day intensive event.
See the full article here.
ORNL is managed by UT-Battelle for the Department of Energy’s Office of Science.
