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Science Alliance Annual Report

2008–2009

UT-ORNL Joint Institutes

Joint Institute for Neutron Sciences

Scientists use various imaging techniques to magnify what is happening to individual atoms and molecules. For the lighter atoms, like the hydrogen found in abundance in biological materials, neutrons hold the key.

Neutrons can penetrate material far better than charged particles. For them, because they interact with nuclear rather than electrical forces, it’s almost as if the material isn’t there at all—that is, until by chance a neutron slams into the nucleus of an atom. Typically, an atomic nucleus is 100,000 times smaller than the distance between it and another nuclear center. Scientists use the scattering patterns from those occasional collisions to tell them about material structure.

To use neutrons, though, you need an accelerator or a reactor capable of hurling huge quantities of them into a material so hard that some will bounce off atomic nuclei; and following that, you need expensive instruments to interpret the data.

The Spallation Neutron Source (SNS) and nearby High Flux Isotope Reactor (HFIR) at ORNL do just that. An accelerator-based source, the SNS can generate the most intense pulsed neutron beams in the world. HFIR, with its steady neutron-rich stream, produces different and complementary results. Together, they combine to make ORNL the world’s foremost center for neutron science.

The Joint Institute for Neutron Sciences helps scientists get the most out of the two facilities. Construction of a $7.6 million, 28,000-ft2 building to house the joint institute began in October 2008; completion is expected early in 2010.

In FY08, JINS won a competitive three-year Department of Energy EPSCoR Implementation Award to build a collaborative Neutron Scattering Research Network among UTK, the SNS, and HIFR and the EPSCoR states. JINS and participants in the network share postdoctoral fellows with the SNS and HFIR and collaborate on biology, polymer science, condensed matter physics, and other cross-cutting interdisciplinary fields.

In FY09 JINS awarded nine $12,000 neutron fellowships and sponsored four workshops. JINS is directed by Distinguished Scientist Takeshi Egami.