News and events

Overseas Synchrotron has Neutron Scattering Opportunities Based at OPAL

6 February 2012

The Taiwan Neutron Program, which is administered by the National Synchrotron Radiation Research Centre in Hsinchu, has advertised a number of jobs to be based in the Bragg Institute, using the neutron beam facilities at the OPAL Research Reactor. Specifically there are opportunities for a group leader, a powder-diffraction scientist, a small-angle neutron scattering scientist and a number of postdoctoral fellows. The closing date is 1 March 2012.

International Workshop on Current State and Future of Neutron Stress Diffractometers

10 - 12 January 2012

Together with AINSE and the Institut Laue Langevin in Grenoble, France, we are hosting a Workshop on the Current State and Future of Neutron Stress Diffractometers. A total of 26 researchers have come from 3 Australian universities, DSTO, Canada, China, Japan, Korea, South Africa, the USA and several European countries, in addition to ANSTO's Institute of Materials Engineering and the Bragg Institute. Sessions include: State of the Art in Diffraction Techniques for Stress Measurements, Diffractometers and Detectors, Neutron Optics, Complementary and Subsidiary Techniques, and Current and Future Challenges.

Forward Look to 2012

1 January 2012

Happy New Year to our users and collaborators! And we look forward to serving you and collaborating with you in 2012. Many big new things will occur in 2012: specifically, we expect to make the following substantial new strides:

Towards the end of 2012, OPAL will take a long shutdown to allow installation of the in-pile components for the CG-2 split guide that feeds the new BILBY time-of-flight SANS instrument. This shutdown will commence no earlier than November 1st, but it could consume all of November and December. The reactor operating schedule for late-2012 is not yet issued, but there will likely be at least 100 beam days between 1st July and 31st October. These beam days will be available to the current proposal round that closes on 15th March 2012, and which will be assessed by the Program Advisory Committee meeting on 10-11 May 2012.

Also, by year's end, we expect the new OPAL office building on the south side of the reactor to be essentially complete, and ready for occupation in early 2013. The Institute, will then move approximately 50 of our staff there, in order to move all personnel out of the cabins in the Neutron Guide Hall, and free them up for the four extra instruments that will come on line in 2013. In fact, all major components for the BILBY, DINGO, EMU and KOOKABURRA instruments should on site by the end of 2012.

In the more immediate term, our PELICAN time-of-flight spectrometer should perform its first user experiments, and the Taiwan-funded SIKA cold 3-axis spectrometer should have accepted its first neutrons. The ARC-funded beryllium-filter option on TAIPAN, should also have accepted neutrons.

And looking further out into the future, in April 2012, we are hosting a large international workshop directed at making the case for, and analysing the scientific and technical opportunities to realise, a second guide hall at the OPAL reactor. Once built, this would bring the number of neutron beam instruments up to 30 or more. In addition, the Institute is involved in the organisation of the following meetings during the coming year:

10 - 12 January 2012, Current State and Future of Neutron Stress Diffractometers, ANSTO

16 - 18 April 2012, Workshop on Second Guide Hall for OPAL, ANSTO

17 - 20 September 2012, Sample Environment at Neutron Scattering Facilities, Amora Hotel Jamison, Sydney

18 - 23 November 2012, 2012 International Conference on Small-Angle Scattering (SAS2012), Sydney Convention Centre

25 - 28 November 2012, Structure and Dynamics of Condensed Matter by Scattering Methods Workshop (in celebration of Professor John W. White's 75th birthday), Hunter Valley (just north of Sydney)

6 December 2012, Bragg Symposium - Celebrating 100 Years of Crystallography, Adelaide

2011 has been another productive year

21 December 2011

2011 has been another very productive year for the Bragg Institute. As of mid-December, the Institute has published a total of 145 refereed journal articles, 6 of which were featured on magazine covers. In addition, our staff gave a total of 43 invited talks at major national and international conferences in Asia, Europe, America and Australia. To date, 132 refereed articles from the new OPAL instruments have been published, 62 of them in this calendar year.

First Neutrons into PELICAN

9 December 2011

Today, we commenced hot-commissioning of our PELICAN time-of-flight spectrometer. PELICAN is the 8th neutron beam instrument to enter service at the OPAL Research Reactor. The initial measurements involve scattering from vanadium and a powder-diffraction standard, without the choppers operating.

We expect to do the first spectroscopy measurements, with the
choppers running, early in 2012. All 5m² of PELICAN's position-sensitive detectors have been installed, and data were taken using them. Congratulations to Dehong Yu, who has led a large team over many years to reach this point, in addition to a large number of ANSTO staff who have contributed to achieving this important milestone.

Prize for Best Student Presentation at NCTA 2011

7 December 2011

David Cortie, a University of Wollongong PhD student based with us in the Institute, has been awarded a prize for Best Presentation by a Student at the 17th AINSE Conference on Nuclear and Complementary Techniques of Analysis, in Canberra. His talk was entitled "The Magnetic Velcro Effect: Exchange Bias in Nanocrystalline Thin films investigated with Neutron and X-ray Scattering".

First DINGO Components have arrived

5 December 2011

Today we passed an important milestone, in that we took
delivery of the first neutron-beam-instrument component for
our new DINGO Radiography/Tomography/Imaging Station,
namely its CCD camera.

The DINGO project is led by Ulf Garbe, and the station is
scheduled to accept neutrons by mid-2013.

Work with National University of Singapore on Li-ion Batteries

28 November 2011

Work done at OPAL, on lithium-ion batteries, is featured as a highlight on the National University of Singapore's website, with the following commentary: "Researchers from ANSTO, Australia (Neeraj Sharma et al.), National University of Singapore (M V Reddy et al.) and University of Wollongong performed a successful in-situ neutron diffraction experiment on a mock lithium-ion battery while it was charging and discharging to illustrate how the crystal-structure of a cathode material changes." The work was done on our WOMBAT high-intensity powder diffractometer, and the full reference is: "Time-Dependent in-Situ Neutron Diffraction Investigation of a Li(Co_0.16Mn_1.84)O₄ Cathode ",
J. Phys. Chem. C 115, 21473–21480 (2011).

Funding Success for CRC for Polymers

22 November 2011

The Cooperative Research Centre for Polymers, of which ANSTO is a core participant, has been successful in the latest Commonwealth funding round, and has been offered $14.5M over five years. The new funding commences on 1 July 2012, and the Institute will be strongly involved in a number of projects, together with industry partners, universities and CSIRO.

Beam Time Allocations for First Half of 2012

22 - 23 November 2011

Today, the Program Advisory Committee chaired by Prof. Anton Middelberg (University of Queensland), met to assess the scientific merit of beam-time and deuteration proposals submitted for time between January and June 2012. In general, the impression was that the quality of both proposals and external reviewing has continued to increase. 138 experiments were recommended for approval, with beam time allocations as follows: 65 days on Echidna, 65 days on Wombat, 85 days on Kowari, 63 days on Koala, 75 days on Platypus and 65 days on Taipan. The variation in time allocated is primarily due to existing commitments to program proposals. One new program was recommended for approval in this round, and its time allocations on Taipan, Wombat and Echidna are included in the figures given above .

Strong Institute Presence at Inaugural Asia-Oceania Conference on Neutron Scattering, in Japan

20 - 24 November 2011

The Institute has a strong presence this week at the First Asia-Oceania Conference on Neutron Scattering in Tsukuba, Japan. Our staff are giving two of the keynote lectures: "Morphological Studies of Thin-Film Optoelectronic Devices Using Neutron Reflectometry" by Michael James and "Loose Spin and Chemical Order Induced Couplings in Magnetic Thin Films: A Neutron Scattering Study" by Frank Klose. Additional keynote lectures are being given by four of our users, from Renmin University (Beijing), the Australian National University, University of Auckland and Sydney University. Our staff are also giving four additional invited talks at the meeting, as are four more of our users, from National Tsing-Hua University (Hsinchu, Taiwan), University of New South Wales at the Australian Defence Force Academy, the Pipeline Cooperative Research Centre and University of Adelaide.

One of our students, Sean McTrustry, won one of the "best poster awards" at the conference for his poster on "Rapid Sample Quencher for Neutron Scattering Experiments".

Finally, at the meeting, Australia was successful in its bid to host the second Asia-Oceania Conference on Neutron Scattering in Sydney, in 2015. Chris Ling (Sydney U., and President of the Australian Neutron Beam Users Group) presented the bid on behalf of the Australian Neutron Beam Users Group, with support from AINSE, ANSTO and Business Events Sydney.

4th Asia-Oceania Neutron School Held in Sydney

12 - 17 November 2011

ANSTO is hosting this year's annual Asia-Oceania Neutron
Scattering School, which was originally planned in Tokai
Japan, but which we offered to host, in the wake of the 2011
Tohoku Earthquake. Thirty-one students are in attendance
from seven different countries in the region.

Commercial Work on Starch featured by Minister Kim Carr

9 November 2011

Work done on our QUOKKA small-angle neutron scattering instrument, with Perten Instruments, has been featured in a press release by Innovation Minister Senator Kim Carr, with the title "Starch gets a Better Rap from Aussie Nuclear Science". This work was also supported by a Tech Vouchers grant from the New South Wales State Government.

Success in ARC Grants

1 November 2011

In the current round, the Institute is involved in one successful ARC Discovery grant for a total of $700k over 3 years: "Diffusion – the Key to Performance in Organic Optoelectronic Devices" (with the University of Queensland); and one successful ARC-LIEF grant for $375k: "A State-of-the-art Magnetic Property Measurement Facility for the Development of Advanced Materials and Biomedical Technologies in the Sydney Basin" (with UNSW, University of Sydney, University of Western Sydney and University of Wollongong).

Celebrating the Half-Way Mark for the NBI-2 Project

14 October 2011

Today our whole team assembled for a lunch-time barbeque to celebrate the
fact that we are more than half way through $37M Neutron Beam Expansion
Project, which is funded by the Australian Government's Super-Science
Initiative. This 4-year project includes a new split cold-neutron guide, three
new instruments and some high-end sample environment apparatus. At this
point, we have signed contracts for 68% of the value of the major components,
and have tenders out for an additional 5% of the total value. All major
contracts should be let by the end of this year. Specifically, the main CG-2
Guide Contract has been placed, the detectors, choppers and vacuum vessel
for the BILBY time-of-flight SANS instrument, the detectors, Doppler drive
and vacuum vessel for the EMU backscattering spectrometer, and the
detector, sample stage and main shielding for the DINGO imaging station
have all been ordered, as has the full scope of new sample-environment
apparatus.

Construction of our Helium-3 Polariser System Complete

7 October 2011

Our colleagues at the Institut Laue Langevin, in Grenoble, France, have now completed the construction of our new Helium-3 polarising station. The ILL team has for the past several weeks been doing commissioning work on individual components: the gas flow system, the electronics, the control program, the laser optics, and mechanical test fitting the various components. The field coils had previously been tested to yield a highly uniform magnetic field for the job. Yesterday, the team assembled all the components of the station together and fulfilled the milestone of completing the construction. The focus will now be continuing the commissioning work of the system and now move towards the goal of polarising Helium-3 gas to high polarisation. This system will be used to polarise the gas used in polarisers and
analysers for six of our instruments: WOMBAT, PLATYPUS, QUOKKA, TAIPAN, SIKA and PELICAN.

New Scientist arrives for KOWARI Strain Scanner

29 September 2011

We are glad to welcome Dr. Anna Paradowska as the second instrument scientist for our KOWARI strain scanner. Anna comes to us most recently from the ISIS spallation neutron source in England, and she joins Dr. Vladimir Luzin on KOWARI.

8th OPAL/NDF Proposal Round Closed Today

15 September 2011

Our 8th proposal round closed today, with 149 proposals across 5 thermal- and one cold-neutron instruments, and both Chemical and Bio-Deuteration at the National Deuteration Facility. Including existing approved programs and the mail-in system on ECHIDNA, 971 beam days were requested across ECHIDNA, WOMBAT, KOALA, KOWARI, TAIPAN and PLATYPUS. Including strong demand from the National Science Council of Taiwan, roughly 31% of demand was from overseas (China, New Zealand, Singapore, Japan, the UK, the USA, South Africa, Canada and 5 other countries in Asia and Europe). 46% of demand was from Austalian universities and CSIRO, and 23% from ANSTO itself. These proposals will now go out for external review by up to 5 referees, with the final recommendations on allocation of beam time, by the Program Advisory Committee in November 2011. Approved experiments will be run, starting in January 2012. The next proposal round is open, with a closing date of 15 March 2012.

First Components of KOOKABURRA have arrived

9 September 2011

This week, we took delivery of the first major component of our new
KOOKABURRA Ultra-Small-Angle-Neutron Scattering instrument: the doubly
focussed pyrolytic-graphite monochromator, which will deflect the beam out
of OPAL's CG-3 guide, upstream of the PLATYPUS neutron reflectometer.
The array of 85 crystals (5-wide and 17-high) are mounted on a machined
perfect silicon back-plate, and will operate at a Bragg angle of 45°. The
silicon support plate was manufactured by the French company SESO.
X-ray and neutron measurements have confirmed that the
assembled premonochromator crystal performance is according
to specifications.

Minor Change to Sutherland-ANSTO Bus Service

5 September 2011

Effective from today, Monday 5 September, a new Sutherland-ANSTO mini-bus timetable is in place. In particular, please note that the last bus service will now leave ANSTO 15 minutes earlier at 6.45pm rather than 7pm...

Front and Back Covers on Advanced Engineering Materials

2 September 2011

Work by Klaus-Dieter Liss and his group is featured on both the front and back covers of this month's edition of Advanced Engineering Materials. The front cover shows synchrotron-radiation data (from the Advanced Photon Source in the USA) taken on bulk metallic glasses, while the the back cover shows neutron-diffraction data (from our WOMBAT high-intensity powder diffractometer) taken on zirconium alloys of interest to the nuclear industry. The full references are: (1) "On the Atomic Anisotropy of Thermal Expansion in Bulk Metallic Glass", D. Qu, K.-D. Liss, K. Yan, M. Reid, J. D. Almer, Y. Wang, X. Liao and J. Shen, Adv. Eng. Mater. 13, 861-864 (2011), and; (2) "In Situ Characterization of Lattice Structure Evolution during Phase Transformation of Zr-2.5Nb", K. Yan, D. G. Carr, S. Kabra, M. Reid, A. Studer, R. P. Harrison,
R. Dippenaar and K.-D. Liss, Adv. Eng. Mater. 13, 882-886 (2011).

First Taiwan-funded Instrument Scientist arrives on PLATYPUS

23 August 2011

Today, Dr. Daniel Hsu arrived at ANSTO as the first of three new instrument scientists at ANSTO, funded for the operational phase of the National Science Council of Taiwan's investment at the OPAL Reactor. Daniel joins the team of scientists serving users, doing research and operating our PLATYPUS Neutron Reflectometer. In the coming months, additional Taiwan-funded scientists will arrive to join our teams on the QUOKKA small-angle neutron scattering instrument, and in powder diffraction on ECHIDNA and WOMBAT. Dr. Charlie Wu, who has overseen the construction of the SIKA cold-neutron 3-axis spectrometer, and which is expected to take its first users in 2012, will also continue for its operational phase next year. As with the other Taiwan-funded instrument scientists, Daniel will act as local contact both for users coming from universities in Taiwan, and also for users from Australia and elsewhere who come in through our user portal.

5th Annual AINSE-ANSTO Neutron School

15-19 August 2011

Together with AINSE, we are hosting the 5th Annual Neutron School, this
time on the subject of Order and Disorder. A total of 22 students and
early-career researchers have come from 8 different Australian
universities, CSIRO, New Zealand, South Africa and the USA.
Experiments were performed by the students, as part of the school, on
all of our operational neutron beam instruments.

Changes to Access Regime for SAXS, X-ray Reflectometer and National Deuteration Facility

12 August 2011

In response to the present budgetary situation at ANSTO, and the end of NCRIS funding for the National Deuteration Facility, a number of significant changes are coming into force for the next proposal round that closes on September 15th:

For our two SAXS instruments and X-ray reflectometer, all stand-alone usage involving AINSE member institutions, should now be submitted through AINSE's portal, and standard facility charges will apply. If use is requested in conjunction with QUOKKA or PLATYPUS neutron experiments, X-ray beam time can still be requested through the Bragg Institute portal, and AINSE will then be invoiced for the X-ray component of the work.

For the National Deuteration Facility, charges have now been published on AINSE's website, and these will apply to any successful proposals involving AINSE member institutions. However, in an effort to coordinate the deuterations with the related neutron experiments at OPAL, access will continue to be via the Bragg Institute portal. All other research proposals, for instance for NMR, optical spectroscopy or neutron experiments at facilities other than OPAL, should be submitted via AINSE's portal.

Finally, given that we only received the refurbished detector for QUOKKA in July 2011, and there remains a large backlog of commitments to users for small-angle neutron scattering, we are not in a position to offer QUOKKA in the coming round for beam time between January and June 2012. In other words, the January-June round that closes on September 15th includes the PLATYPUS neutron reflectometer, both chemical- and bio-deuteration and our 5 operating thermal neutron instruments: ECHIDNA, WOMBAT, KOALA, KOWARI and TAIPAN.

Nomination for Eureka Peoples Choice Award

11 August 2011

One of our staff, Dr. Vanessa Peterson, is featured on tonight's ABC Catalyst program, for her work on "Leading the Charge for a Clean-Fueled Future". She is a candidate for the Peoples Choice Award at the upcoming Eureka Prizes, which are organised by the Australian Museum in Sydney. Vanessa ia also a candidate for the "Outstanding Young Researcher" prize, and is featured on Senator Kim Carr's website. If you wish to vote for Vanessa, please do so via the Australian Museum's voting page. Voting closes on Sunday 4th September 2011, and the winner will be announced on 6th September.

Beam Time Allocations for December to October 2011

11 August 2011

Today, the Program Advisory Committee chaired by Prof. Anton Middelberg (University of Queensland), met to assess the scientific merit of beam-time and deuteration proposals submitted for time between October and December 2011. Prof. Keng Liang (National Chiao Tung University) joined the committee for the first time, representing the National Science Council of Taiwan. In general, the impression was that the quality of both proposals and external reviewing has continued to increase. 54 experiments were recommended for approval, with beam time allocations as follows: 35 days on Echidna, 46 days on Wombat, 68 days on Kowari, 49 days on Koala, and 52 days on Taipan. The variation in time allocated is mainly due to existing commitments to program proposals, and in part to the existing backlog on the instruments from the present round. No programs were recommended for approval in this round.

Due to the problems with OPAL's cold neutron source and with Quokka's detector (as reported below on 18 January, 30 May and 12 July 2011) and the resultant carryover of commitments, both Platypus and Quokka had been withdrawn from this proposal round, and the committee only considered proposals to the National Deuteration Facility and our 5 operational thermal-neutron instruments.

Feedback from this review, along with advice regarding beam-time allocations, should go out to users within two weeks.

Beam Instruments Advisory Group meets to review our Major Capital Projects

28-29 July 2011

Today, the Beam Instruments Advisory Group, chaired by Dr. Dan Neumann (NIST Center for Neutron Research, USA), met to review progress on all of our major capital projects, including the $37M Neutron Beam Expansion Project. The latter includes the BILBY Time-of-Flight Small-Angle Instrument, the DINGO Neutron Radiography/Tomography/Imaging Station, and the EMU Back-Scattering Spectrometer. On this occasion, we were glad to welcome Prof. Andrew Peele, Head of Science at the Australian Synchrotron, in place of Dr. Ian Gentle, who was unable to attend.

First Major Delivery in $37M Neutron Beam Expansion Project

26 July 2011

Today, we took delivery at ANSTO of the first major procurement (aside from the project office building) of the $37M Neutron Beam Expansion Project announced in the Australian Government's May 2009 Budget: a highly versatile 12-T vertical-field cryomagnet with dilution refrigerator insert, from Oxford Instruments in the UK. The split-pair magnet has a large aperture allowing use of the full detector arrays on WOMBAT and PELICAN, and it can be run in asymmetric mode, which can be an advantage for polarisation analysis experiments. The whole package includes a dilution-refrigerator insert capable of reaching temperatures below 20mK. Once commissioning tests have been undertaken by Oxford Instruments on our site, the first experiments using the magnet will be done.

QUOKKA Refurbished Detector Installation and Return to User Service

12 July 2011

The refurbished 1m² area detector has been received, installed and successfully tested on the QUOKKA Small-Angle Neutron Scattering Instrument. Following instrumental calibration over the next two weeks, it is anticipated that Quokka will return to full user service. Users with approved beamtime will be contacted shortly to schedule experiments.

Century of Papers from OPAL

10 July 2011

We have now published 100 refereed papers using neutron scattering data recorded at the OPAL Reactor. The hundredth paper results from a collaboration with the University of New South Wales at the Australian Defence Force Academy, University of Wollongong and the University of Manitoba (in Canada), using our WOMBAT high-intensity powder diffractometer. The full reference to the paper is: J. L. Wang, S. J. Campbell, J. M. Cadogan, A. J. Studer, R. Zeng and S. X. Dou, Neutron diffraction study of the magnetic order in NdMn₂Ge_1.6Si_0.4, J. Phys.: Conf. Series 303, 012022-1 to 012022-6 (2011).

Instrument Scientist for SIKA Arrives

7 July 2011

In preparation for operation of the SIKA cold-neutron 3-Axis Spectrometer, which is expected to receive its first neutrons towards the end of 2011, Dr. Guochu Deng has joined ANSTO as 2nd instrument scientist. SIKA has been funded and constructed by the National Science Council of Taiwan, and this hiring action is in the context that four more instrument scientists will be provided, via the National Synchrotron Radiation Research Centre in Hsinchu, to support users in powder diffraction, reflectometry, small-angle scattering and 3-axis spectroscopy. Guochu joins us most recently from the Paul Scherrer Institute in Switzerland.

OPAL Back in Service and Change to Reactor Schedule

7 July 2011

A revised OPAL reactor schedule was issued today after OPAL returned to service on 30/6/2011 after an unplanned outage of the OPAL reactor. We apologise to those users who were scheduled to commence experiments at the end of June and those that have been affected by the change to the OPAL schedule. These approved experiments will now be rescheduled. The schedules for OPAL and all the neutron beam instruments can be seen on our website.

Third Magazine Cover this Month

28 June 2011

For the third time this month, collaborative work involving the Institute and the OPAL Reactor has been featured on a journal cover. Work done on our ECHIDNA high-resolution powder diffractometer is featured on the cover of this week's edition of the Journal of Solid State Chemistry. The featured article is for work done with colleagues from the University of Sydney. The full reference is: "Neutron diffraction studies of Gd₂Zr₂O₇ pyrochlore", B. J. Kennedy, Q. Zhou and M. Avdeev, J. Solid State Chem. 184, 1695-1698 (2011).

Second Magazine Cover this Month

17 June 2011

For the second time this month, collaborative work involving the Institute and the
OPAL Reactor has been featured on a journal cover. Work done on our PLATYPUS Neutron Reflectometer and using material produced through the user program of the National Deuteration Facility is featured on the cover of this week's edition of Advanced Functional Materials. The featured article is for work done with colleagues from the University of Queensland. The full reference is: "Organic Light-Emitting Diodes: Investigating Morphology and Stability of Fac-tris (2-phenylpyridyl)iridium(III) Films for OLEDs", Arthur R. G. Smith, Jeremy L. Ruggles, Hamish Cavaye, Paul E. Shaw, Tamim A. Darwish, Michael James, Ian R. Gentle and Paul L. Burn, Advanced Functional Materials 12, 2225-2231 (2011).

Farewell to an Old Friend and Longserving Employee

10 June 2011

Today we bade farewell to Margaret Edmondson, who is retiring from ANSTO after 24 years of service. Approximately fifty people came to a leaving lunch today at the Bangor Tavern, and enjoyed some happy and amusing reminiscences of Margaret's time with us. Margaret had been personal assistant to Dr. John Boldeman in the days of Physics Division, and is well known to many of our users as the admin support and phone voice of the Australian Synchrotron Research Program, which laid the foundations for our own domestic synchrotron light source - the Australian Synchrotron. In recent years, Margaret has continued to serve our users and staff in the Bragg Institute User Office. We wish Margaret well, and will miss her.

Magazine Cover on Dalton Transactions

9 June 2011

Work done on our ECHIDNA high-resolution powder diffractometer is featured on the cover of this week's edition ofDalton Transactions, which is published by the Royal Society of Chemistry in England. The featured article is for work done with colleagues from Cambridge University, and the magazine cover includes the chemical structures against a backdrop image of the OPAL research reactor itself. The full reference is: "Detailed investigations of phase transitions and magnetic structure in Fe(III), Mn(II), Co(II) and Ni(II) 3,4,5-trihydroxybenzoate (gallate) dihydrates by neutron and X-ray diffraction", Paul J. Saines, Hamish H.-M. Yeung, James R. Hester, Alistair R. Lennie and Anthony K. Cheetham, Dalton Trans. 40, 6401-6410 (2011).

A second article, also from ECHIDNA and done in collaboration with ANSTO's Institute of Materials Engineering, Sydney University and the Australian Synchrotron, is also listed as an advance article for the following issue: "Structural phase transitions and magnetic order in SrTcO₃", Gordon J. Thorogood, Maxim Avdeev, Melody L. Carter, Brendan J. Kennedy, Jimmy Ting and Kia S. Wallwork, Dalton Trans. (2011).

Election to Fellowship of Institution of Engineers Australia

9 June 2011

Paris Constantine, the project engineer and group leader for the $37M Neutron Beam Expansion Project, along with other major capital projects in the Institute, has been elected a Fellow of the Institution of Engineers Australia.

Progress on Polarised Helium-3 Station

6 June 2011

In preparation for the arrival of our new ³He polarising system, based on the metastable-exchange optical pumping method, from the Institut Laue Langevin in Grenoble (France), the support platform has been delivered and placed on top of the guide bunker in the Neutron Guide Hall. It is located above the cold neutron guides and close to our PELICAN time-of-flight spectrometer, which will be one of the major users of polarised helium-3 gas. The whole project is led by Hal Lee, and particular thanks are due to: John Barnes, Tony Kafes, Paris Constantine, Andrew Eltobaji, Alain Brule and Phil Hanson (for the installation work, design and supervision of manufacturing).

Update on Availability of PLATYPUS and QUOKKA

30 May 2011

Following the successful return to service of OPAL's cold neutron source two weeks ago, we are glad to announce that our PLATYPUS neutron reflectometer is back in user service. Regarding the problems mentioned in our news item of 18th January, the issues with the chopper system were resolved very quickly and have not caused any problems for several months. The issue with the CG-3 guide that feeds PLATYPUS is now understood, and a short-term remedy has been implemented. A better long-term remedy will be implemented during 2012. The schedule of experiments on PLATYPUS can be seen on our schedule webpage, and the remainder of outstanding commitments will be scheduled soon, with the intent of clearing the backlog by the end of this year.

Regarding our QUOKKA small-angle scattering instrument, it has also been taking data but, as we reported on 18th January, the replacement detector is still unstable in time, to the point that we cannot run user experiments until the original refurbished detector arrives back from the manufacturer. Return of the detector has been delayed and we now expect it to arrive in June 2011. If all goes well, we hope to resume the experimental program on QUOKKA in August 2011.

3 Long-Term Visitors from NIST

25 May 2011

Today, we welcome two researchers from our sister facility in Washington DC, the NIST Center for Neutron Research, as long-term visitors. NIST operates a 20-MW beam reactor very similar to our own OPAL Reactor, and it is presently undergoing a 10-month long shutdown to install a second cold neutron source, extra neutron guides and instruments, along with a second guide hall. Dr. Craig Brown, a recent presidential young investigator awardee, and Ms. Yamali Hernandez will be with us until the end of September. A third researcher, Mr. Juscelino Leao an expert in sample environments will also join us in June and stay into 2012.

7th OPAL/NDF Proposal Round Closed Today

22 May 2011

Our 7th proposal round closed today, with 109 proposals across our 5 thermal-neutron instruments, and both Chemical and Bio-Deuteration at the National Deuteration Facility. Including existing approved programs and the mail-in system on ECHIDNA, 675 beam days were requested across ECHIDNA, WOMBAT, KOALA, KOWARI, and TAIPAN. Including strong demand from the National Science Council of Taiwan, roughly 35% of demand was from overseas (China, New Zealand, Japan, the USA, South Africa and 8 other countries in Asia and Europe). 47% of demand was from Austalian universities and CSIRO, and 18% from ANSTO itself. These proposals will now go out for external review by up to 5 referees, with the final recommendations on allocation of beam time, by the Program Advisory Committee on 11-12 August 2011. Approved experiments will be run, starting in October 2011. The next proposal round is open, with a closing date of 15 September 2011.

Update on OPAL's Cold Neutron Source

14 May 2011

The OPAL Reactor returned to service today after a short routine maintenance shutdown. The cold source is functioning well and the shutters to all of our instruments are open. The status of the reactor, cold source and instruments can be viewed via the Bragg Institute Information Monitor page.

Helping our Japanese Friends following the Recent Earthquake

9 May 2011

In the recent earthquake in northeastern Japan, both the JRR-3M research reactor and the J-PARC spallation neutron source were affected to the point that both will be out of action for some time. These are two of the leading neutron sources in our region, and the JRR-3M reactor is similar to our OPAL Reactor. In an effort to help our Japanese colleagues and their customers, we have made two significant offers of assistance:

Firstly, we have offered beam time on ECHIDNA, KOWARI and KOALA, for approved experiments diverted from JRR-3M, and it is likely that several groups (from U. of Tokyo, Kyoto University and Osaka University, and other universities) will take up this offer in the immediate term.

Secondly, this year's AONSA Neutron Scattering School was scheduled to be held jointly at JRR-3M and J-PARC, with hands-on experiments, in addition to lectures. The facilities are in no position to provide this service, and we have offered to host the school at OPAL as a replacement. Likely dates are 14-18 November, and both lecturers and students will be drawn from a range of countries in our region, including Australia, New Zealand and Japan.

Helium-3 Polarising Cells Tested

5 May 2011

Today, the first batch of in-beam glass cells for some our instruments were successfuly pressure tested at the Institut Laue Langevin in Grenoble, France, where they and a complete helium-3 polarising system are being fabricated and assembled. The cells typically operate at up to 3 bar above atmospheric pressure, and all four cells were tested to 50% beyond that. The next steps are to bake each cell out, fill with helium-3 gas, and then to test the spin-polarisation of the gas along with the polarisation lifetime. The four cells shown here will be used on WOMBAT, TAIPAN, PLATYPUS and QUOKKA. Smaller cells will be used on SIKA, and a larger one on PELICAN.

Delay to Construction of Bragg Institute Extension

27 April 2011

Construction of the Bragg Institute extension has been temporarily delayed, due to the tight fiscal constraints all Australian government agencies are facing at the current time. The new building complex is designed to hold up to 150 staff, including users, long-term research visitors, and students or postdocs based at the Institute. It will also accommodate all the laboratories, equipment and staff of the National Deuteration Facility. For the meantime, another building being constructed for the Nuclear Operations Division, will allow for co-location of some Bragg Institute staff and/or users. This will free up space in the Neutron Guide Hall in time for completion of KOOKABURRA, BILBY, EMU and DINGO. All four of these instruments are presently in the procurement phase and are scheduled for completion in mid 2013. The Bragg Institute Extension project remains a priority and detailed design has been completed and reviewed. It will go ahead when financial conditions allow.

High-Temperature Loading on our Strain Scanner for the First Time

15 April 2011

Today, for the first time, we conducted strain measurements on our KOWARI Strain Scanner at 900°C. The sample was a Zr-2.5%Nb alloy, with relevance for the nuclear industry in general and the OPAL reflector vessel in particular, and was the object of a collaborative study between ANSTO's Institute of Materials Engineering, University of Wollongong and the Institute. We used the 100kN horizontal load frame, in conjunction with our 1000°C furnace. Congratulations are due to our sample-environment team, for getting this equipment working on KOWARI, and to Saurabh Kabra and Vladimir Luzin who conducted the experiment.

Bragg Institute Advisory Committee Meets

11-12 April 2011

The Bragg Institute Advisory Committee, which gives strategic advice to the Institute, met today at ANSTO under the chairmanship of Prof. Peter Colman (Walter and Eliza Hall Institute). For a variety of reasons, including the turmoil following the major earthquake/tsunami in Japan, the committee had a slimmed-down presence this year, with presence by Prof. Keith Nugent (Director of the Australian Synchrotron), Prof. Lyndon Edwards (ANSTO-Materials Engineering) and Prof. Bill Stirling (CEA, France).

Update on OPAL's Cold Source

2 April 2011

The OPAL Reactor returned to service today after a short routine shutdown. We have had good thermal-neutron reliability throughout the first three months of 2011, and 84% of this beam time has been used for user experiments on our 5 operating thermal-neutron instruments. However, the cold neutron source did not return to service, due to continuing difficulties with the helium gas system that drives the cryogenic system. ANSTO has been working with all the relevant contractors to understand and ameliorate this situation, and we are hopeful that cold-neutron service will resume on 14th May after the next planned shutdown.

Pelican's Vacuum Vessel has Arrived

25 March 2011

Early this morning, the large vacuum vessel (~7 tonne) for our PELICAN time-of-flight spectrometer was successfully delivered and put into position in the Neutron Guide Hall. We now have all the major components of the spectrometer, including 200 linear position-sensitive detectors and three Fermi choppers, in the facility and the full installation can now commence. PELICAN is the 8th neutron beam instrument at the OPAL Reactor, and will be used to study how water molecules and other species move inside catalysts and other materials of interest, in addition to studying the excitation spectra of magnets and complex electronic materials. It will likely be the first such instrument in the world to feature continuously variable incident neutron energy, with polarised neutrons and polarisation analysis and a fully moveable secondary spectrometer. Congratulations to all who have helped us achieve this significant milestone. The all-aluminium vessel has been fabricated by the local company Nepean Engineering.

Moving to fixed Proposal Deadlines at OPAL

23 March 2011

After the next proposal deadline of May 22nd 2011, we have decided to move to fixed and regular proposal deadlines of 15 September and 15 March each year, for beam time allocations in the January-June and July-December windows respectively. This means that the next beam-time allocation period will be for the shorter window of 3 months between October and December 2011, inclusive. This move has been made after extensive consultation with our Program Advisory Committee, which includes formal representation from both the Australian Neutron Beam Users Group and AINSE, and with our staff.

In addition, given the present non-operation of OPAL's Cold Neutron Source, and uncertainty over when it will return to service, we have decided to withdraw our two cold-neutron instruments, the QUOKKA small-angle neutron scattering instrument and the PLATYPUS reflectometer from the May 22nd proposal round. Proposals to use the five thermal-neutron instruments and both the Chemical and Biological Deuteration facilities will be considered in the May 22nd round. Proposals should be submitted via our User Portal.

ANSTO is doing its utmost to return cold neutrons to our users, and we have agreement from the major suppliers of the refrigeration system to investigate the cause of the problem, to perform on-site inspection of the system, and to work co-operatively with ANSTO and INVAP to fix the problem. Once the Cold Neutron Source is operating again, we will attempt to clear our backlog of approved experiments from previous rounds on QUOKKA and PLATYPUS.

Poster Prize at HERCULES School in France

23 March 2011

One of our graduate students, Joel Bertinshaw (with University of New South Wales), has won a Best Poster Prize at the prestigious HERCULES school in Grenoble, France. The award was for his poster on "Studying multiferroic BiFeO₃ and ferromagnetic La_0.67Sr_0.33MnO₃ tunnel junctions with neutron scattering and Raman spectroscopy". The one-month intensive HERCULES course is designed to provide training for students, postdoctoral and senior scientists from European and non-European universities and laboratories, in the fields of Neutron and Synchrotron Radiation for condensed-matter studies (Biology, Chemistry, Physics, Materials Science, Geosciences, Industrial applications).

Two new Postdoctoral Fellows start with us

21 March 2011

In recent weeks, two new postdoctoral fellows have commenced with us: Dr. Sebastian Brück (formerly with the Max Planck Institute in Germany), and Dr. Ben Kent (formerly with the Royal Melbourne Institute of Technology). Dr. Brück is in a joint fellowship with the University of News South Wales, but based at the Bragg Institute, working with Frank Klose and Clemens Ulrich. Dr. Kent is working with Chris Garvey on "Lateral Phase Separation in Lipid Mixtures, the Effects of Sugars and Mechanisms of Cryoprotection of Cell Membranes".

Archaeology & Cultural Heritage Workshop

14-17 March 2011

Together with the Office of the Scientific Attache of the Embassy of Italy, we are today hosting the Italian-Australian Archaeology and Cultural Heritage Workshop in Cronulla. Attendees have come from 10 Italian and 5 Australian universities, the Sincrotrone Trieste, the Australian Museum, CSIRO, ANSTO and one institute in New Zealand.

Update on OPAL's Cold Neutron Source

7 March 2011

The OPAL Reactor returned to service on 2nd March 2011 after a planned shutdown. Unfortunately, the cold neutron source is still out of service due to some difficulties we experienced, while installing spare parts to the compressor that failed in December 2010. The earliest that we are likely to have cold neutrons is 2nd April, immediately after the next scheduled OPAL shutdown. These events mostly affect users of our PLATYPUS reflectometer and the QUOKKA small-angle neutron scattering instrument. Once the cold source is again operational, we will start scheduling our accumulated backlog of approved experiments. We apologise to our users for the inconvenience and disruption that this is causing.

Polarised Helium-3 Equipment Installed on QUOKKA

28 February 2011

This week, we have installed the first major piece of equipment for our polarised helium-3 project, which we are pursuing in conjunction with the Institut Laue Langevin in Grenoble, France. The equipment in question is a "magic box", consisting of a magnetically shielded cavity with a small very uniform magnetic field, within which the helium-3 analyser is placed. Eventually, such devices will be installed on WOMBAT, PELICAN, TAIPAN, SIKA, PLATYPUS and QUOKKA.

Beam Instruments Advisory Group meets to review our New Instrument Projects

14-15 February 2011

Election to Executive of AIP

7 February 2011

At the Annual General Meeting of the Australian Institute of Physics today in Melbourne, Rob Robinson was elected to a 2-year term as Vice-President. The Australian Institute of Physics exists to support professional physicists and to promote all aspects of physics to the wider community.

Farewell to Oliver Kirstein

4 February 2011

Today, we bade a sad farewell to Oliver Kirstein, who leaves us, after eight and a half years at the Institute, to take up the position of "Division Head for Instrument Support" at the new European Spallation Source Project, in Sweden. Oliver led our effort to build the KOWARI strain scanner at the OPAL Reactor, and he saw this project through from its definition to full instrument operations and user service. We wish Oliver and his family well.

Beamtime allocations for April-September 2011

3-4 February 2011

Today, the Program Advisory Committee chaired by Prof. Anton Middelberg (University of Queensland), met to assess the scientific merit of beam-time and deuteration proposals submitted for time between April and September 2011. In general, the impression was that the quality of both proposals and external reviewing had increased significantly. 2 programs and 81 experiments were recommended for approval, with beam time allocations as follows: 69 days on Echidna, 70 days on Wombat, 79 days on Kowari, 80 days on Koala, 40 days on Platypus, 21 days on Quokka and 84 days on Taipan. The variation in time allocated is mainly due to existing commitments to program proposals, and in part to the existing backlog on the instruments from previous rounds.

Due to the problems with OPAL's cold neutron source and with Quokka's detector (as reported below on 18 January 2011), we have a substantial backlog of outstanding commitments on our two cold-neutron instruments (105 days on Platypus and 148 days on Quokka). We have therefore only been able to allocate around 15-20% of the requested beam time on these two instruments: the new experiments will likely take place after September 2011, once the backlogs have been cleared, and no scheduling will be done before the cold-neutron source returns to service in March.

Feedback from this review, along with advice regarding beam-time allocations, should go out to users within two weeks.

First Paper from the NDF and OPAL

28 January 2011

The first scientific research article featuring deuterated compounds produced by our Chemical Deuteration facilities at the National Deuteration Facility and neutrons provided by the OPAL Reactor has been accepted for publication in Advanced Functional Materials. The work is the result of a collaboration with researchers at the University of Queensland. The full reference to this work is A. R. G. Smith, J. L. Ruggles, H. Cavaye, P. Shaw, T. A. Darwish, M. James, I. R. Gentle and P. L. Burn, Morphology and Stability of Fac-tris(2-phenylpyridyl)iridium(III) Blended Films: a Neutron Reflectometry Study, accepted for publication in Advanced Functional Materials (2011). The neutron scattering was performed using our PLATYPUS neutron reflectometer.

Update on Availability of QUOKKA and PLATYPUS

18 January 2011

Unfortunately, on top of the difficulties we are experiencing with OPAL’s cold neutron source (reported below on 5 January), we are also having technical difficulties with both our QUOKKA small-angle neutron scattering instrument and our PLATYPUS neutron reflectometer:

As reported in September 2010, we experienced a detector failure on QUOKKA, and replaced its original detector with our spare, which we had procured precisely in order to minimise the impact on our users of such a detector failure. However, after roughly 2 months, the replacement detector also developed a “hot spot”: while we can successfully mask this effect out both neutronically and electronically, the overall detector performance is not stable in time. We have therefore decided to postpone all scheduled experiments until the original detector is refurbished and returned from the original manufacturer in the USA, on May 1st 2011. We may be able to use the cold neutrons between March 1st, when the cold source returns to service, and May 1st to commission some additional components of QUOKKA (e.g. rheometer, stop-flow cell, guide fields for polarised neutrons, and so on). We apologise to our users for the disruption that this is bound to cause, and we will reschedule their beam time after May 1st.

There are also two problems on PLATYPUS, in particular with its chopper system and the CG3 guide, which is delivering less flux and seems to have gone out of alignment. In the future, CG3 will also feed the EMU and KOOKABURRA instruments. We are taking measures to diagnose both of these issues, and this results in a moderate amount of schedule rearrangement beyond that imposed by the cold-source failure. To date, however, we have been able to continue the program, with some performance limitations.

In summary, we expect the cold neutron source and PLATYPUS to return to service on 1st March 2011, and QUOKKA to return to service on 1st May 2011.

Student gives Invited Lecture in Mexico

8 January 2011

Today, one of our graduate students, Kun Yan (University of Wollongong), is presenting an invited talk at the International Symposium on Plasticity 2011 in Puerto Vallarta, Mexico. Her presentation is on "Deformation mechanisms of twinning-induced plasticity steels investigated by individual 2D diffraction image texture measurements", and features work done both on WOMBAT and using high-energy synchrotron radiation.

Update on Cold Neutron Source

5 January 2011

Unfortunately, on 26th December 2010, we experienced a failure of one of two primary compressors for our cold-neutron source. The cold source cannot operate, with the reactor at full power, without both compressors. As a consequence, neither the OPAL cold-neutron source itself nor the QUOKKA or PLATYPUS instruments, which are fed by the cold source, have operated since 26 December. The estimated date for return to service is 1 March 2011. QUOKKA and PLATYPUS will be out of service until then. The present reactor and instrument schedules are available on the web, and disrupted experments will be rescheduled at the first available opportunity in April, May or thereafter in 2011.

First Phys. Rev. Letter from OPAL

4 January 2011

Our first Physical Review Letter, on "High-temperature magnetic ordering in the 4d perovskite SrTcO₃", has been accepted for publication. The work features data taken on our ECHIDNA high-resolution powder diffractometer, and results from a collaboration involving Sydney University, ANSTO's Institute of Materials Engineering, Cambridge University, University of California Santa Barbara, University of Nevada Las Vegas and three American National Laboratories. Strontium technate has been little studied previously, as it contains the radioactive man-made element technetium. Our work indicates that the material may be full of surprises, as it exhibits the highest magnetic ordering temperature in any compound without 3d transition elements like iron, cobalt, and nickel. This discovery is the result of neutron diffraction, in conjunction with quantum-mechanical calculations.

New Postdoctoral Fellow Arrives

4 January 2011

Today, Dr. James Doutch joined our team as a postdoctoral fellow, as part of our Neutrons for Food Project. James joins us most recently from Liverpool University in the United Kingdom.