D16 is devoted to the study of partially ordered structures such as stacked membranes or intercalated layers. The scattering geometry obtained with large, vertically oriented samples, profits the most from the large vertical cross section of the beam at the sample position. The instrument can also be used for small angle scattering and powder diffraction in an intermediate q-range (0.01-2.5 Å^-1).

• Biology/Biophysics: collagen, spider dragline silk, lyotropic mesophases, water confined between lipid bilayers, fusion peptides, purple membranes, histone tetramers in solution, hydration and denaturation of proteins, etc.
• Colloids/Surfactants: surfactants, swelling (clay minerals, single crystal vermiculites), plate-spherical particle mixtures, confined materials (in clays, sol-gel glasses), etc
• Polymer physics: superstructure, extension and orientation in polymers, etc.
• Material science: carbon nanotubes, hydrogen sorption, isotope-substituted quasicrystals, clusters (FM, glass-state, phase separation, etc.), Verwey transition, quantum critical point, etc.
• Surface science: sheared liquids, monolayers phase behaviour, templated growth of metal oxide films, etc.

D16 is a two-circle diffractometer that evolved from the first "biological membrane diffractometers" built in Brookhaven and Harwell in the early seventies. Because of its special characteristics, D16 remains unequalled for the study of a wide range of systems in biology, physics and physical chemistry.