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Instruments & Support

While the ILL's neutron source has remained essentially unchanged during the lifetime of the Institute, the ILL's instruments and their components have been continually developed and improved to increase their effectiveness.

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Instruments & groups

Instruments & groups

ILL instruments are operated by several groups -  each of them dealing with closely related experimental techniques. Instruments are identified by the instrument's symbol:

  • D - Neutron diffraction
    Powder-, Single-crystal-, & Small-angle-diffractometers, Reflectometers
  • IN - Inelastic neutron scattering
    Three-axis, Time-of-flight & High-resolution spectrometers
  • PF & PN - Nuclear and Particle physics

Map of the instruments

From the 2009 Annual Report

Instrument characteristics


Instrument Groups

Description

Instruments


Diffraction
(DIF)

The instruments of the DIF group use neutron diffraction for studying the structure of materials used in everyday life.

Powder diffractometers:

D1A, D2B, D20, D1B(CRG), D4, SALSA

Single-crystal diffractometers:

CYCLOPS, D3, D9, D10, D15(CRG), D19, D23(CRG),  OrientExpress, VIVALDI

Large scale structures (LSS)


The instruments of the LSS  are all dedicated to measuring structures on the scale of 1 to 100s of nanometers.

Large-scale structure diffractometers:

D11, D16, D22, DB21, LADI-III

Reflectometers:

SuperADAM(CRG), D17, FIGARO

Time of flight
(TOF/HR)

The instruments of the TOF/HR group are aimed at studying the dynamics in condensed matter samples, either in the form of powders, glasses or liquids.

Time-of-flight  spectrometers:

IN4, IN5, IN6, D7, BRISP(CRG)

High-resolution spectrometers:

IN10, IN11, IN13(CRG), IN15, IN16

Triple axis (TAS)

The three-axis spectrometers are very versatile instruments for the studies in condensed matter. They are designed, primarily, to investigate the collective motion of atoms and that of their magnetic moments in single crystalline samples.

Three-axis spectrometers:

IN1, IN8, IN12(CRG), IN14, IN20, IN22(CRG)

IN3

Options :
- Multi-analyser: FlatCone (IN8, IN14, IN20), IMPS (IN8), UFO (IN12)
- Spin echo: TASSE (IN20), ZETA (IN20?, IN22)


Test instrument: IN3

Nuclear and particle physics (NPP)

The NPP instruments are excellent and unique tools to investigate key questions in nuclear and neutron particle physics.

PF1B, PF2, PN1, PN3, S18(CRG), CryoEDM(CRG)


Other Groups

Description

C-Lab and Virtual Experiments

The Computation Lab (C-Lab) hosts scientists and students wanting to perform instrument and sample simulations and allows a broad spectrum of experience and tools to be brought together where the experiments are performed. From September 2007 simulations support can be requested along with neutron beamtime and accepted simulation work is performed by visitors in collaboration with the C-Lab.

Theory

The Theory Group works with ILL/ESRF users to help them understand
(i) neutrons and their interaction with matter and (ii) the properties of materials being studied using neutrons/xrays.


There are 28 ILL instruments, 3 jointly funded instruments and 9 CRGs. Here you can have the full ILL instrument list (December 2007).