Development of new instrumentation for epithermal neutron scattering at very low angles

New perspectives for epithermal neutron spectroscopy are opened up by the recent developments of Resonance Detectors (RD) for inverse geometry time-of-flight spectrometers at pulsed neutron sources. The RD is based on the combination of an analyser foil used as neutron-to-gamma converter and a suitable photon detector. Here, we report on the state of the RD which is based on a YAP scintillator viewing a natural uranium analyser foil. The response of the YAP detector to the radiative capture gamma emission from the uranium analyser foil has been characterized with a bi-parametric measurement of a reference Pb sample, which allowed simultaneous measurements of both neutron time-of-flight and gamma pulse height (energy) spectra. The analysis of the gamma pulse height and neutron time-of-flight spectra permitted to identify the signal and background components. These measurements showed that a significant improvement in the signal-to-background ratio can be achieved by setting a lower level discrimination on the photon energy at about 600 keV. The first application of RD is the Very Low Angle Detector Bank (VLAD) which is planned to be installed in the next three years as an upgrade of the VESUVIO spectrometer, at the ISIS pulsed neutron source. VLAD will extend the (q,omega) kinematical to low wave vector transfers (q < 10 Angstrom(-1)) coupled to high-energy transfers ((h) over bar omega > 1 eV), which is still unexplored by neutron scattering experiments. The first measurements obtained on an ice sample with a VLAD prototype consisting of four RD units are presented here. (C) 2004 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.