Affiliations: [a] Neutron Science and Technology Center, Comprehensive Research Organization for Science and Society, Japan. E-mails: [email protected], [email protected] | [b] J-PARC Center, Japan Atomic Energy Agency, Japan. E-mails: [email protected], [email protected]
Abstract: We recently designed and developed a furnace for small-angle neutron scattering, enabling small-angle neutron scattering data with a very low background level to be obtained. The furnace consists of an internal heater and external vacuum chamber. The internal heater consists of an alumina tube around which a heating coil is wound. There are two open windows in the alumina tube for the incident and scattered neutron beams. In the vacuum chamber, there are two aluminium windows of thickness 0.5 mm. As a result, only these aluminium windows are in the path of the beam, and the background scattering from elements other than the sample is significantly reduced in the detected signals. The opening angle for the scattered beam is ±15°. This is adequate for the small-angles detector bank in TAIKAN (BL15) at the Materials and Life Science Experimental Facility (MLF) at the Japan Proton Accelerator Research Complex (J-PARC).
Keywords: High temperature furnace, small-angle scattering instrument, low background, aluminium window
