Hands on the neutrons at ILL: 2026 JCNS Laboratory Course on Neutron Scattering

The 28th edition of the Course organised by JCNS took place from 7 to 18 September. Like last year, the second week of the course was dedicated to hands-on tutorials and took place at the ILL.

The 28th edition of the Laboratory Course on Neutron Scattering, organised by the Jülich Centre for Neutron Science (JCNS), took place from 7 to 18 September 2026. This year’s 50 participants, selected among 137 applicants, were a very international group of highly motivated graduate students coming from institutions in 14 different countries. 54% of the participants were women.

Like last year, the two-week course was split between Forschungszentrum Jülich (FZJ), in Germany, and the ILL in Grenoble, France. The first week, held in Jülich, was devoted to lectures and exercises. The lectures provided an introduction to neutron scattering and instrumentation. Talks on the applications of neutron scattering highlighted the crucial role of neutrons as probes in soft matter, energy materials, life sciences, quantum materials, as well as in industry.

The school then moved to the ILL for a week of hands-on training.

Four additional lectures were held at the ILL: nuclear and particle physics, neutron imaging, proposal writing, and introduction to the ILL. Arriving shortly after the start of the third 2026 ILL reactor cycle, the participants benefitted from the ideal setting for hands-on training in fully realistic conditions.

The participants carried out experiments using 27 world-class instruments, out of ILL’s suite of over 40 instruments. A very broad set of techniques was presented to the participants, covering single crystal and powder diffraction, reflectometry, small-angle neutron scattering, backscattering spectroscopy, neutron spin echo spectrometry, triple-axis spectroscopy, time-of-flight spectrometry, spectrometry for high-energy dynamics, strain analysis, neutron and X-ray tomography, as well as fundamental neutron physics instrumentation. In addition, 10 scientific computing tutorials were conducted, highlighting the growing importance of computational methods in neutron scattering. These included five 'virtual experiment' sessions.

The main organisers of the school were JCNS researchers Margarita Kruteva, Irina Apanasenko and Reiner Zorn. The collaboration and commitment of the local teams at the ILL were vital for making the week a success. Below, a small photo gallery of the event.