Monte Carlo simulations of the NIMROD diffractometer

The near and intermediate range order diffractometer (NIMROD) has been selected as a day one instrument on the second target station at ISIS. Uniquely, NIMROD will provide continuous access to particle separations ranging from the interatomic (< 1 angstrom) to the mesoscopic (< 300 angstrom). This instrument is mainly designed for structural investigations, although the possibility of putting a Fermi chopper (and corresponding NIMONIC chopper) in the incident beam line, will potentially allow the performance of low resolution inelastic scattering measurements. The performance characteristics of the TOE diffractometer have been simulated by means of a series of Monte Carlo calculations. In particular, the flux as a function of the transferred momentum Q as well as the resolution in Q and transferred energy have been estimated. Moreover, the possibility of including a honeycomb collimator in order to achieve better resolution has been tested. Here, we want to present the design of this diffractometer that will bridge the gap between wide- and small-angle neutron scattering experiments. (c) 2006 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.