Getting Beamtime During the Shutdown
The NRU reactor was shutdown for maintenance on May 14, 2009. Currently, the reactor is expected to be back up, likely in the first quarter of 2010. See AECL's NRU status reports for details. Proposals for beam time at the Canadian Neutron Beam Centre are still encouraged, because we aim to be running approved user projects (especially those for Canadian academics) immediately on restart of the NRU reactor. Meanwhile, parallel applications to foreign facilities are also encouraged. Examples of foreign neutron laboratories include: SNS, HFIR, NIST, LANSCE, OPAL, ISIS and BENSC. A full list is available here.
Travel Assistance to Foreign Facilities
Meanwhile, we are pleased to announce limited travel assistance, on a first-come first-served basis, for those who choose to apply in parallel for beam time at foreign neutron laboratories. NSERC has approved this travel support as a reallocation of budget items within the Major Resource Support grant 236732-2007 "Canadian Neutron Beam Laboratory."
Canadian academic users whose projects receive 'director's discretionary time' at foreign facilities (for example, this may be the case a project that was previsouly approved for beamtime before the NRU shutdown) will be reimbursed up to $1000 per week or part thereof, for each participant who planned to attend the experiment at Chalk River, based on receipts for actual expenses.
Canadian academic users who obtain access to foreign facilities through their normal peer-review proposal system, and whose proposals were submitted (to the foreign lab) between May 2009 and December 2009 will be reimbursed up to $1000 per week or part thereof, based on receipts for actual expenses, and proof of the proposal submission date (Up to two travelling users per proposal).
Please contact Niki Schrie prior to booking travel arrangements.
Oak Ridge National Lab, USA (SNS and HFIR)
Proposals for beam time at Oak Ridge National Laboratory's High Flux Isotope Reactor (HFIR) and Spallation Neutron Source (SNS) will be accepted via the web-based proposal system until noon eastern time, Monday, August 31, 2009. This call is for experiments to run from December 2009 through May 2010.
Specific information about this call and about each of the instruments available during this experimental period is included on the ORNL Neutron Sciences web site at http://neutrons.ornl.gov/users/user_news.shtml
Bragg Institute, Australia (OPAL)
The next proposal round at OPAL is open now, with a closing date of 27 November 2009. Proposals may be submitted online. OPAL is interested in hosting users to assist CINS researchers in the temporary shutdown, even if the application is just in case NRU is shut down longer than presently anticipated.
OPAL has 7 neutron instruments operating:
ECHIDNA - high-resolution powder diffraction - contact: Max
Avdeev or James Hester
WOMBAT - high-intensity powder diffraction - contact: Andrew
Studer or Vanessa Peterson
KOALA - single-crystal Laue diffractometer - contact: Alison
Edwards or Ross Piltz
KOWARI - strain scanner - contact: Oliver
Kirstein or Vladimir Luzin
PLATYPUS - neutron reflectometer - contact: Michael
James or Andrew Nelson
QUOKKA - small-angle neutron scattering - contact: Elliot
Gilbert, Bill Hamilton or Katy Wood
TAIPAN - thermal 3-axis spectrometer - contact: Mohana
Yethiraj or Sergei Danilkin
OPAL presently has some spare capacity on ECHIDNA, KOALA and TAIPAN, and might be able to fit in some experiments before Christmas. See OPAL's research staff page for contact info. OPAL also has bio- and chemical-deuteration facilities, X-ray reflectometry and SAXS, which are available in conjunction with neutron experiments.
ISIS Pulsed Neutron & Muon Source (UK)
The deadline for beamtime applications is October 16, 2009.
