by Winfried Kockelmann (ISIS Facility ), Anton Tremsin (UC Berkeley), Markus Strobl (PSI), last update: 28.01.2023 

Neutron imaging beamtime continued to be in short supply in 2022. Some neutron sources have been down for considerable periods such as FRM-2 and NIST, some sources such as ILL and ISIS TS1 have had planned long shutdowns. A silver lining for this year is that instruments will come back into operation, and that there is substantial progress visible at some of the new neutron imaging facilities at reactor and spallation sources. Concerns about reduction of running times of sources due to rising energy costs have somewhat abated. Furthermore, AMG (formerly NIAG) will continue to offer additional beamtime on BOA and POLDI (see ISNR #17 2022).

Here we provide an update on the availability of neutron imaging beamlines, especially for the year 2023. Table 1 gives an overview of operational user facilities, their status and web links to instrument pages and beamtime application pages at the facilities. It may be well worth checking user office application links about various ways of accessing beamtime for industry and universities, as some facilities have dedicated fast access schemes in addition to the usual bi-annual proposal deadlines listed in Table 1. A number of neutron imaging facilities are currently being installed and will come up over the next few years, and we list those in Table 2.

Table 3 surveys some of the operation modes of neutron imaging instruments at user facilities. Many instruments now offer (or plan to provide) wavelength-selecting or resolving (e.g. Bragg edge) imaging and/or grating interferometry (e.g. dark field) analysis options. Polarized neutron imaging is now/will be available at many facilities. Access to Time-of-Fight (ToF) epithermal neutrons at pulsed sources permits resonance (elemental) analysis. Some instruments offer simultaneous X-ray CT collection. Resolution values given in Table 3 are only indicative, and meant for white beam imaging. Facilities that offer high spatial resolution on their instrument (suite) have either high primary neutron fluxes and/or have embarked on dedicated projects to improve spatial resolution.

Table 1. Operational neutron imaging instruments at user facilities: status and access information.

Table 2. Neutron imaging instruments in construction or commissioning: status information.

Here you can open a pdf of a survey of Neutron Imaging Facilities. It was jointly prepared and conducted by the ISNR and IAEA in June 2019.

NOTE: The material reproduced in the document has been supplied by the authors and has not been edited by the IAEA. The views expressed remain the responsibility of the named authors of the document and do not necessarily reflect those of the government(s) of the designating Member State(s). In particular, neither the IAEA nor any other organization or body supporting this survey can be held responsible for this material.