News and events

Project Team moves into new Temporary Accommodation

11 March 2010

Today, the NBI-2 Project team moved into a new temporary project-office building adjacent the Neutron Guide Hall. The new building can accommodate up to 25 staff, and the idea is to have the whole Major Capital Projects team, including instrument scientists, engineers, designers, admin and procurement staff, in one common location.

Jill Trewhella Elected Fellow of NSSA

10 March 2010

Prof. Jill Trewhella (Sydney University), who is affiliated with the Institute, has been elected a Fellow of the Neutron Scattering Society of America "For her landmark experiments using small angle neutron scattering to study the structure of biological macromolecules in solution and service to the neutron scattering community." Jill is one of fourteen new fellows who will be formally recognized at the 2010 American Conference on Neutron Scattering in Ottawa, Canada, June 26-30, 2010.

New Expert in Reflectometry Arrives

22 February 2010

Today, Dr. Stephen Holt joined the team running our neutron reflectivity program, using our time-of-flight reflectometer PLATYPUS. Stephen is a returning expatriate Australian, who has worked for many years in a similar capacity at the ISIS spallation source in the UK.

KOALA Data featured in new College Textbook

15 February 2010

A Laue diffraction image taken using our KOALA single-crystal diffractometer has been used in the new textbook "Essential College Physics, Volume 2", published by Addison Wesley. The book is written by Profs. Andrew Rex (University of Puget Sound) and Richard Wolfson (Middlebury College). The image, featuring sodium chloride, was taken in 2008 as the first image taken on KOALA, during commissioning. It appears in Chapter 23.4, on page 544, under the heading "Evidence for Matter Waves".

Major Components for SIKA Arrive

12 February 2010

Today, the major monochromator shielding components for the SIKA cold-neutron 3-axis spectrometer started arriving. SIKA, the 9th neutron beam instrument at the OPAL reactor, is funded by the National Science Council of Taiwan, and project is being managed by Prof. Wen Hsien Li of the National Central University.

First Experiment at OPAL using Deuterated Material from the NDF

2-5 February 2010

For the first time, using a bio-deuterated sample produced at the National Deuteration Facility, we have used the full combination of the National Deuteration Facility with neutron reflectometry at the OPAL Reactor. The data were taken on our PLATYPUS reflectometer, by a collaboration between University of Queensland and ANSTO.

4th Round of OPAL Beam-time Applications

2-3 February 2010

The Bragg Institute Program Advisory Committee met today to assess the 131 neutron-beam and deuteration proposals submitted by 27 November 2009, requesting 669 days of beam time. For the first time, the committee also considered chemical-deuteration proposals. 1 program and 108 experiments were recommended for approval, with beam time allocations as follows: 61 days on Echidna, 59 days on Wombat, 100 days on Kowari, 73 days on Koala, and 63 days on Quokka. The variation in time allocated is due in part to the existing backlog on the instruments from previous rounds. Taipan proposals have been put in rank order by scientific merit, but the beam-time allocation will have to await our submission of the operating license to our nuclear regulator ARPANSA.

Decision letters concerning the beam-time allocation will be sent in the next few weeks. These experiments will be scheduled for dates commencing in April 2010. Three committee members who have served since the PAC's inception are stepping down after this meeting: Calum Drummond (chair - CSIRO); Valerie Linton (U. of Adelaide); and Hugh O'Neill (Australian National University). We thank Calum, Valerie and Hugh for their insight, wisdom and help over the last 3 years.

The next proposal round closes on 7 May 2010, for beam time between October 2010 and March 2011.

Student wins University Medal at UNSW

29 January 2010

Mr. Sven Sylvester, an honours student at the University of New South Wales has won a University Medal, on the basis of his thesis, Solid-State Photochromic Molecular Assemblies, which made major use of our X-ray reflectometer. Mr. Sylvester was supervised by Profs. Justin Gooding (UNSW) and Michael James (ANSTO), and he also worked closely with Dr. Tamim Darwish in the National Deuteration Facility. He now moves to Trinity College Cambridge to pursue his PhD studies.

Beam Instruments Advisory Group Re-forms

28-29 January 2010

For the last 2 days the reconstituted Beam Instruments Advisory Group met, under the chair of Dr. Dan Neumann (NIST Centre for Neutron Science, USA), at Lucas Heights. The BIAG gives the Institute management advice on all our major capital projects, including the NBI-2 Project (new guides, BILBY, EMU and DINGO instruments) and other instruments (PELICAN, SIKA and KOOKABURRA) already in construction or design. In addition to Dan Neumann, Drs. Ian Gentle (Australian Synchrotron) and Michi Furusaka (U. of Hokkaido, Japan) continue from the previous committee, which last met in February 2007. New members include: Dr. Ken Andersen (ILL-Grenoble), Prof. Craig Buckley (Curtin U.), Dr. Eberhard Lehmann (PSI), Prof. Greg Warr (Sydney U.) and Dr. Steve Wilkins (CSIRO). The BIAG will meet roughly every 6 months from now on.

Newly Arrived Staff

26 January 2010

A number of new staff have arrived in the Institute in the last few weeks: Dr. Nicolas de Souza joins us from the Juelich Centre for Neutron Science at the FRM-II Reactor in Munich, to lead our effort for a high-resolution (1micro-eV) back scattering spectrometer at OPAL; Dr. James Taylor joins us, from Portsmouth University in the UK, as a postdoc in our structural biology program working with Jill Trewhella and Bill Hamilton; Mr. Glen Ford joined us as a Project Planner for the NBI-2 Project; and Ms. Jorden Likiss joined the User Office as an Administrative Assistant.