Page 289 - Neutrons for Sciences and Society

that the British identified themselves more closely with the Europeans, rather than the Americans. The results had been obtained through a lot of effort from informal mixed nationality teams compensating for the limitations of the new instruments, and crude sample facilities. The challenge today is to apply all the technological improvements to solve problems in new fields.
The ILL continues to advance as evidenced by the addition of new scientific member countries (now 12). While the overall budget has only increased a little the CRG instruments though dependant on the ILL engineering and support for infrastructure and safety, are not directly reflected in the overall budget. The fundamental physics experiments now use advanced UCN techniques to increase fluxes and obtain exceptional sensitivities. New detectors are under development to avoid use of expensive 3He. In solid state physics very low temperature devices are available routinely, and polarisation techniques are more generally installed. New techniques use modern contra-rotating disc choppers in white beam blind-chopper configurations which
allow time of flight techniques to benefit from optimal repetition rates maximising use of the continuous flux, with applications in SANS (D33) and reflectometry (D17 and Figaro). Biologists have extended their use of contrast variation to include reflectometry on membranes, with samples created by the Deuteration Facility. Although in the 1980s during some years more than 216 user days were scheduled (with 6.5 cycles of 44 days in 1980), safety upgrades costly in time and money restrict current operations.
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Translator’s notes