JCNS: 2nd “High Brilliance Neutron Source” Workshop

by: Thomas Gutberlet, JCNS

On 29-30 September 2016, the second international workshop on High Brilliance Neutron Sources based on compact accelerator systems was held in Unkel, Germany. These types of compact sources could serve as national or international medium-flux, high brilliance neutron sources and bridge the potential gap due to the ongoing concentration of research with neutrons at a few very powerful neutron facilities in Europe.

Organized by the Jülich Centre for Neutron Science (JCNS) the workshop was attended by more than 30 experts from France, Italy, Spain, Sweden, Hungary, Switzerland and Germany. They were welcomed by Prof. Sebastian Schmidt, Member of the Board of Directors of Forschungszentrum Jülich, and Prof. Thomas Brückel, director at JCNS, who emphasized the importance of developing high brilliance neutron sources to open up new opportunities for neutron scattering in science and industry.

The workshop presented and discussed the current status and perspectives for the development of high brilliance neutron sources. Detailed technical and scientific challenges were discussed in two parallel sessions on the topic of compact accelerators and targets as well as moderator systems and neutron instrumentation. Both the challenges as well as the opportunities associated with the developments were tackled.

Following on from the various expert discussions, a set of workshops on specific topics will be held over the next few months. Combined projects and experiments will be organized to demonstrate a suitable, efficient design for a compact accelerator-driven neutron source in the near future. Results will be presented at the next High Brilliance Neutron Source Workshop in autumn 2017.