Page 76 - ILLS Annual Report 2018

MODERNISATION PROGRAMME AND INSTRUMENT UPGRADES
Endurance: ILL
Instrument Upgrade Programme
Exciting times are ahead for Endurance, the ILL’s current instrument upgrade programme. The first phase, Endurance1, benefitted from an additional contribution from the ILL’s Associates of 4.5 M€ / year for the period 2016 to 2018. Among the projects involved, the new fission product prompt gamma–ray spectrometer, FIPPS, was the first of the new instruments to begin commissioning and delivering science at the end of 2016. The majority of components for SuperSUN, the new source of ultra-cold neutrons (UCN), are in the advanced stages of construction for installation and a first phase of commissioning during 2019. The first UCNs from SuperSUN will allow the next-generation, neutron electric dipole moment (EDM) experiments to begin in the PanEDM collaborative experiment. New and upgraded sample environment capabilities have been, and will continue to be, steadily delivered
by the NESSE project throughout the course of Endurance, while the BASTILLE project to deploy the multi-facility Mantid software is making great headway in delivering modernised data treatment software for most ILL instruments.
AUTHORS
C. Dewhurst and J. Estrade (ILL)
The winter shutdown of 2018–2019 has already seen the rather bittersweet dismantling of IN4C to make way for the new, thermal time-of-flight (TOF) spectrometer, PANTHER. IN4C began user operation in 1998, benefitting from additional upgrades during the Millennium programme. Its intense neutron flux paved the way for much high-impact science, thought to be impossible elsewhere, and was
a cornerstone of thermal neutron spectroscopy at the ILL. PANTHER will boast an overall performance increase
of 60 times that of IN4C, by exploiting a much larger position-sensitive detector (PSD) and improved optics with large double-focusing monochromators. Enhanced instrument shielding and the roll-out of five background choppers will significantly improve the signal-to-noise ratio, contributing
to the anticipated massive improvement in data quality
and capabilities of PANTHER compared with IN4C. Importantly, the instrument optics and PSD allow for work on single-crystal samples, while the fully non-magnetic instrument will allow polarisation-analysis experiments using the PASTIS3 insert.
The backbone of Endurance1 is the ‘Chartreuse’ project, involving the renewal of the H24 thermal neutron guide and the upgrade of the D10+ single-crystal diffractometer and IN13+ (CRG) backscattering spectrometer, as well as a new extreme-conditions powder and single-crystal diffractometer, XtremeD (CRG). Each instrument will benefit from a dedicated end-of-guide position, allowing for optimised beam-shaping and monochromator optics. As a result of constraints in the functioning of the ILL reactor during 2017, the ‘Chartreuse’ projects will
now be finalised upon completion of the H1-H2 guide renewal, at the end of 2020.
An additional injection of funds for instrumentation upgrade came in 2017 in the form of a CPER* grant of 4.3 M€
from French national and regional funds. This financial stimulus has allowed us to advance and inject additional projects into Endurance1, specifically allowing us to: complete PANTHER to its full specification; renew the ageing H16 cold neutron guide and focusing optics on IN5, with estimated gains of x3 in neutron flux for small samples (delivery 2019); undertake a D3-Liquids project to provide a PSD detector and improved polarisation and analysis capabilities for work on hydrogenated liquid samples (delivery 2019); provide anti-Compton discrimination detectors for FIPPS (delivered 2018); purchase a velocity selector to eliminate higher-order wavelength contamination as part of the IN20-Upgrade project (delivery 2020); purchase 3He for future detector-upgrade projects; and, fund design studies for Endurance2.
ANNUAL REPORT 2018
* CPER – Contrat Projet Etat Région