NeXT - Neutron and X-ray Tomography instrument

NeXT (Neutron and X-ray Tomography) is a cold neutron imaging instrument with additional X-rays imaging capabilities. These two modalities can be operated simultaneously.

The typical configurations allow neutron radiography and tomography with fields of views ranging from 4.1×4.1 mm² to 170×170 mm².

NeXT is located at the end of the H521 guide shared with MoTo, D16 and SuperADAM.

The neutron beam passes through a set of adjustable pinhole of diameter D that acts as a primary source. The diverging beam travels a distance L of 4.5-11 m to arrive to the Imaging station, where the sample is mounted. The pinhole selection and movable sample station allow one to change beam intensity and collimation ratio L/D.

The imaging station is equipped with a rotation table to allow for tomographic imaging (including laminography). Behind the sample, a set of possible detectors acquire transmission images of the sample.

Imaging detector - the detector aimed to have maximum flexibility of the field of view and corresponding resolution. The light emitted by the scintillator is reflected vertically by a mirror inclined by 45º. The light is then captured by a sCMOS camera (2048x2048 pixels) mounting a variety of lenses, and which moves on a rail. This allows for modifying the field of view, which ranges from 170x170 mm2  at a resolution of about 100µm to a field of view of 20x20 mm2 and a resolution of about 30 µm. A second detector is currently under development, which allows for higher resolutions, down to 10 µm. Accordingly a set of scintillators is employed, ranging from a 200 µm thick ZnS/Li6F scintillator to a 2.5 µm thick 157Gd2O2S:Tb scintillator.