Enter the world of neutrons! They are a powerful and highly acclaimed tool not only for the study of condensed matter (the world we live in) but also for confirming our current understanding of physics. What's more, you don't even need to be a scientist to use Neutrons4Science. Just be curious!

Neutrons and protons are elementary particles constituting the nucleus of atoms. The neutron has no electric charge but has a spin and a magnetic moment. Neutron beams - like beams of X-rays, electrons or muons - are valuable tools for studying the multitude of materials that surround us in our daily lives (alloys, magnets, superconductors, polymers, colloids, proteins, biological systems, …). However, the way neutrons interact with matter is quite unique and, as a result, it can often reveal to us what is normally hidden. With Neutrons4Science you can discover one of the many types of neutron spectroscopy.
The neutron also answers questions on the very foundations of physics, helping us to solve some of the great mysteries of the universe (Is the Grand Unified Theory valid? Is there a fifth fundamental force? ...) As an example, Neutrons4Science gives you insights to a brand new method of neutron spectroscopy that takes advantage of the quantum states of this light neutral particle.

Neutrons4Science lets you experience neutron science through three interactive 3D animations:
• ThALES: Use a neutron spectrometer (ILL ThALES) as if you were performing a real experiment.
• Magnons: Discover the spin waves that exist inside magnetic materials and understand how ThALES can observe them.
• GRANIT: Discover an innovative gravitational spectrometer (ILL GRANIT) based on neutron quantum states in a gravitational field.

These three educational animations were developed with the help of scientists at the "Institut Laue-Langevin", one of the world's flagship facilities for neutron science.

This project was funded by the ILL and the LPSC and developed by Ipter (out of business since 2015).

Standalone application (7 languages: Chinese, English, French, German, Italian, Russian, Spanish,)

Web version
Plugin free version of the animation Magnons : it has been redeveloped with webGL instead of OpenGL for the original version.
The full web version is in the form of 3 separate activities (ThALES, Magnons and GRANIT) based on an OpenGL plugin that most modern browsers now forbid. Try it HERE or download an offline version (zip - 26 Mi) (12.7 Mb) if you think your bowser can accept it.

Neutrons4Science supports 7 languages and is available on various stores:

• macOS 64bits: English, French, German, Italian, Spanish, Russian and Chinese
• iOS 64 bits: English, French, German, Italian, Spanish, Russian and Chinese
• Android 32 bits: English, French, German, Italian, Spanish, Russian and Chinese <-- may not be functional on recent Androids.
• Android 64 bits: English, (web pages for the other languages soon to come!)

Questions and comments can be sent to the Neutrons4Science team :
    Technical questions: neutrons4science (at) ill.fr
    Scientific questions: communication (at) ill.eu

Please preferably write in English or French. Italian, Spanish, German or Russian are also accepted but may result in substantial answer delays.

EchoSciences - 25 June 2012; La neutronique au bout de vos doigts
Neutron News, 23, Issue 3, 2012; http://www.tandfonline.com/doi/full/10.1080/10448632.2012.695717
ILL News, 56 , June 2012; http://www.ill.eu/quick-links/publications/ill-news/