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| Workshop Background |
Single-crystal diffuse coherent neutron scattering is a powerful technique for probing complex nanoscale disorder in crystalline materials. It provides a determination not only of the local (spin and lattice) distortions around a point defect but also the morphology and length scale of extended defect structures, making it a valuable tool in many areas of materials science, chemistry, and condensed matter physics. To name just a few examples:
- Nanodomains in relaxor ferroelectrics
- Charge/orbital correlations in transition metal oxides
- Geometrically frustrated systems
- Defect correlations in fast-ion conductors
- Quasicrystals
- Magnetic correlations at quantum phase transitions
- Orientational disorder in molecular crystals
- Rigid unit modes in framework structures
Accurate modeling of defect structures requires measurements over a large volume of three-dimensional reciprocal space, with sufficient momentum resolution to distinguish diffuse scattering from Bragg scattering, sufficient energy resolution to discriminate elastic diffuse scattering from vibrational scattering, and low instrumental backgrounds. The Spallation Neutron Source provides an opportunity to perform diffuse scattering experiments with unprecedented efficiency, since the time-of-flight Laue technique can take full advantage of the high brightness of the new source. Nevertheless, there are currently no proposals to build a dedicated diffractometer for single-crystal diffuse scattering. This workshop will address this issue, as well as reviewing existing diffuse scattering capabilities around the world.
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| Workshop Goals |
The goals of this Workshop are:
- To assess the range of science to which single-crystal diffuse scattering has made, and will make, an important contribution
- To review current diffuse scattering instrumentation around the world
- To discuss the technical challenges that have to be addressed by an optimized diffuse scattering diffractometer, including methods of discriminating elastic from inelastic scattering and performing polarization analysis
- To explore the science case for building a dedicated single-crystal diffuse scattering diffractometer at the SNS
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We invite anyone interested in crystalline (or quasicrystalline) disordered systems to participate in this workshop. If you wish to make a presentation, please state this on the registration form. The atmosphere will be informal, with substantial time for discussion.
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