W0407

New High Intensity SAS Instrumentation at Oak Ridge’s High Flux Isotope Reactor: An Update. P.D. Butler, Solid State Div., Oak Ridge National Laboratory, Oak Ridge, TN.

The High Flux Isotope Reactor is the world’s most powerful research reactor with a design power of 100MW and currently operating at 85MW. While its initial purpose was mainly isotope production, new emphasis on neutron scattering has lead to a series of upgrade projects. Among others, these projects aim to ensure continued reliable operation for another 25 years, a completely upgraded suite of instruments on the thermal beams, and the installation of a state of the art cold source crucial to studies of large scale structures. In concert with this new availability of cold neutrons, completely new cold instrumentation is being designed and constructed. In particular, two SANS machines with performances comparable to D22 at ILL are being built. One of the two SANS instruments is funded by the DOE’s office of Biological and environmental sciences and will be dedicated to biological sciences measurements while the other, funded by DOE’s office of basic energy sciences will primarily focus on materials research. Once completed, they, along with a state of the art neutron reflectometer, will be made available to the general scientific community through a newly developed user program. This will allow US researchers easy access for the first time to SANS instrumentation on par with the current best in the world in Grenoble, providing tremendous new opportunities.