Wombat - High-Intensity Powder Diffractometer

Brief description

Wombat is a high intensity neutron diffractometer located in the OPAL Neutron Guide Hall. It is primarily used as a high speed powder diffractometer, but has also expanded into texture characterisation and single crystal measurement, particularly diffuse scattering.

Wombat can be used to study a range of materials including, novel hydrogen-storage materials for clean energy storage of the future, molecules for drug-delivery systems, negative-thermal-expansion materials (materials that contract upon heating) and materials for fusion reactors.

The properties of a material are linked to its atomic structure, which can be influenced by its environment. The effects of temperature, pressure and applied fields (magnetic or electric) on the atomic structure can affect the material's properties and can be measured by Wombat.

For example

* Phase transitions - by varying one or more of the temperature, applied magnetic/electric fields, or applied pressure, the properties in a material can be created or destroyed.
* Material formation - many materials undergo one or more chemical reactions as a function of time as they are formed eg. setting of cement.
* Materials that undergo Negative Thermal Expansion, that is they shrink when heated.
* Cyclic variations - materials periodically exposed to applied fields resulting in changes to the atomic structure.
* In situ studies to observe chemical reactions and other dynamic phenomena as they occur.

All data collected on this beamline is stored in NeXus format datafiles and consists of 2 dimensional integer arrays of neutron counts. The metadata embedded in the nexus file indicates the spatial and temporal meaning of the arrays.

For details of the NeXus file format, please see the NeXus Data Format relatedInfo link below.

For assistance interpreting the data in the first instance please contact the authors of the relevant collection, or if the author is unavailable, one of the instrument scientists (listed in the Wombat Beamline Homepage relatedInfo).

Delivery method

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