Brightness

The European Spallation Source (ESS) will be the most powerful neutron source in the world. Neutrons are mostly used for probing the finest structure of all materials beginning with the investigation of car components to the examination of organic molecules down to the nuclei level. The first scientific measurements will be carried out in 2023 at the ESS.

Two of the sixteen instruments at ESS will be reflectometers. The neutron detectors in these instruments will measure the pattern of neutrons reflected from the inspected materials. The obtained patterns will be used to probe the finest structure of materials to the nuclei level. The highest luminosity reaching these detector exceeds 500 000 neutron for a square mm in a second. This is more than ten times more that was ever measured.

The current neutron detectors are not capable of measuring such high luminosities, therefore detectors are now being developed with a completely new technology. These developements are led by ESS. Our research group joined the development of the Multi-Blade neutron detector that will be used at the reflectometry instruments. The FPGA based readout of this detector is developed mainly by Péter Pázmándi. A Monte-Carlo based simulation is also being developed in our group by Gábor Galgóczi. This is used to understand how neutrons are scattered in the complex geometry of this detector.

Author: Gábor Galgóczi