26 research outputs found
McStas and Mantid integration
McStas and Mantid are two well established software frameworks within the
neutron scattering community. McStas has been primarily used for simulating the
neutron transport of instruments, while Mantid has been primarily used for data
reduction. We report here the status of our work done on the interoperability
between the instrument simulation software McStas and the data reduction
software Mantid. This provides a demonstration of how to successfully link
together two software that otherwise have been developed independently, and in
particular here show how this has been achieved for an instrument simulation
software and a data reduction software. This paper will also provide examples
of some of the expected future enhanced analysis that can be achieved from
combining accurate instrument and sample simulations with software for
correcting raw data. In the case of this work for raw data collected at large
scale neutron facilities.Comment: 17 pages, 12 figures, POSTPRINT with proofs of article submitted to
Journal of Neutron Researc
Polychromatic neutron phase contrast imaging of weakly absorbing samples enabled by phase retrieval
We demonstrate the use of a phase retrieval technique for propagation-based
phase contrast neutron imaging with a polychromatic beam. This enables imaging
samples with low absorption contrast and/or improving the signal-to-noise ratio
to facilitate e.g. time resolved measurements. A metal sample, designed to be
close to a pure phase object, and a bone sample with canals partially filled
with D2O were used for demonstrating the technique. These samples were imaged
with a polychromatic neutron beam followed by phase retrieval. For both samples
the signal-to-noise ratio were significantly improved and in case of the bone
sample, the phase retrieval allowed for separation of bone and D2O, which is
important for example for in situ flow experiments. The use of
deuteration-contrast avoids the use of chemical contrast enhancement and makes
neutron imaging an interesting complementary method to X-ray imaging of bone
Time-of-Flight Three Dimensional Neutron Diffraction in Transmission Mode for Mapping Crystal Grain Structures
The physical properties of polycrystalline materials depend on their microstructure, which is the nano-to centimeter scale arrangement of phases and defects in their interior. Such microstructure depends on the shape, crystallographic phase and orientation, and interfacing of the grains constituting the material. This article presents a new non-destructive 3D technique to study centimeter-sized bulk samples with a spatial resolution of hundred micrometers: time-of-flight three-dimensional neutron diffraction (ToF 3DND). Compared to existing analogous X-ray diffraction techniques, ToF 3DND enables studies of samples that can be both larger in size and made of heavier elements. Moreover, ToF 3DND facilitates the use of complicated sample environments. The basic ToF 3DND setup, utilizing an imaging detector with high spatial and temporal resolution, can easily be implemented at a time-of-flight neutron beamline. The technique was developed and tested with data collected at the Materials and Life Science Experimental Facility of the Japan Proton Accelerator Complex (J-PARC) for an iron sample. We successfully reconstructed the shape of 108 grains and developed an indexing procedure. The reconstruction algorithms have been validated by reconstructing two stacked Co-Ni-Ga single crystals, and by comparison with a grain map obtained by post-mortem electron backscatter diffraction (EBSD)