CSPEC

CSPEC will be used in a wide variety of scientific disciplines focusing on, for example, functional and battery materials, quantum materials that may lead to spintronic applications and  biological macromolecules.

Its key capability is to follow kinetic events in situ or in operando, enabled by very high flux. It will probe the structures, dynamics, and functionality of large hierarchical systems as they change or operate. Hierarchical systems include liquids, colloids, polymers, foams, gels, and granular and biological materials as well as the ever complex low-energy dynamics of energy materials and emergent magnetic behaviour. As we probe the dynamics of these systems, we unlock the principles that steer the organization of atoms into complex matter, and we can develop and improve functional materials for solving societal challenges.

Neutrons Unlock the Hidden-Order State of Frustrated Magnets

Over the last 60 years neutron scattering has provided the breakthroughs necessary to understand the atomic-level ordering of magnetic materials.

Read More

Dispersionless Spin Waves Provide Clues to Enigmatic Magnetic Ordering in Garnet Crystals

Neutron measurements reveal key dynamic properties of magnetic structure in unique experimental study.

Read More

The instrument length is 160 m from moderator to sample. The CSPEC guide will view the coldest part of the moderator with neutrons guided using a s-shaped curved guide that removes the direct field of view from the sample to the moderator thus eliminating the possibility of spurious high energy particles reaching the sample.

The wavelength bandwidth, Δλ = 1.72 Å, of the instrument is defined using bandwidth choppers at 15 and 20 m while the monochromatic pulses are defined using the pulse shaping and monochromating choppers positioned at approximately 105.6 and 158.5 m from the moderator. Finally, the monochromatic pulses are well separated in time using a repetition rate multiplication chopper close to the monochromatic chopper that separates each ESS time period, 71 ms, into 10 – 15 incident pulses on the sample.

The final guide piece can be chosen by the user to provide flux on a large sample area, 4 x 2 cm², or a focussed sample area, 1 x 1 cm². The scattering from the sample will pass through a radial oscillating collimator and reach a B¹⁰ multigrid detector, 3.5 m from the sample, with a scattering angle of 170^o in the equatorial plane and ±26.5^o vertical coverage. 

Figure 3 shows an example of the the range of incident wavelengths on the sample within the ESS time period on CSPEC. The flux of each incident wavelength on sample as a function of energy resolution, at the detector, for a range of wavelengths is shown in Figure 4. 

These simulations are derived from McStas 2.3 simulations with ESS 5 MW power, scattering from an incoherent sample (0.01 m radius) at the sample positioned and probed at the detector position. In this figure comparisons with current high profile cold chopper spectrometers are made and this shows that an order of magnitude in flux will be gained for the complete and finalised instrument. In the day 1 scope of the instrument only 50 % of the detector coverage will be readable and it is expected that ESS will run at 2 MW thereby providing a 2-3-fold improvement, as opposed to an order of magnitude, for each incident wavelength. These improvements are valid for the case of inelastic scattering experiments.

In the case of quasielastic measurements it will be possible, in certain cases, to sum the incident pulses across the ESS time period. Figure 5 shows the energy resolutions across the bandwidth as the CSPEC chopper are phased to wavelengths ranging from 2 to 13 Å. The science case for CSPEC is focussed on in-situ kinetic measurements. In these experiments the dependence on momentum transfer, Q, is often neglected, to date, in favour of intensity of the energy transfer by integrating the complete detector area in Q. Information obtained from the Q-dependence is vital to understand the spatial behaviour of the relevant dynamics and is not available for many measurements on current chopper spectrometers. For wavelengths > 7 Å the energy resolution across several of the incident pulses will be comparable to the variation in Q resolution across the detector range. On CSPEC it will be possible to integrate some of the incident pulses across the CSPEC bandwidth and therefore provide a substantial increase in flux.

The design of the CSPEC sample environment pot will provide an optimized facility to perform experiments ranging from in-operando studies of electrolytes, pump-probe experiments on photosensitive materials, and the investigation of small samples in extreme sample environments. 

• P. Deen
  Lead Scientist
  European Spallation Source
• J. Guyon Le Bouffy
  Lead Engineer
  Laboratoire Léon Brillouin
• W. Lohstroh
  Scientific Coordinator
  FRM II, Technical University of Munich
• S. Longeville
  Scientific Coordinator
  Laboratoire Léon Brillouin