Title: Neutron Sources and Instruments

– the impact they have had on science

Speaker:Prof. Robert A. Robinson

 Ibaraki University and University of Wollongong

Vunue: GTIIT North Campus -  E308

 Time:  Friday 2017/12/15 17:00

Neutron Scattering is one of the key methods used to study materials, and it can only be done at large centralized facilities like research reactors and spallation sources.  The lecture will introduce the basic physics behind neutron production and their use, as well as the principles on which the various instruments work.  This will cover modern sources like the new CSNS spallation source in Dongguan and the OPAL Research Reactor in Sydney. I will also show how this method has contributed to many of the most important materials discoveries in the past few decades, some of which have won Nobel Prizes in Physics or Chemistry and/or have given rise to new industries.

Prof. Robinson has almost 40 years of experience in neutron scattering and condensed-matter physics.  A graduate from the Cavendish Laboratory at the University of Cambridge, he then went to Los Alamos National Laboratory, initially as a postdoctoral fellow, and stayed there for 17 years.  In 1999, he moved to Sydney, Australia, to lead the neutron scattering effort, and build-up of both instruments and staff, at the new OPAL research reactor.  He retired from ANSTO in July 2016.  He is a Fellow of the American Physical Society and was President of the Australian Institute of Physics between 2013 and 2015. He has long had strong connections in China and serves on the Neutron Technical Advisory Committee for the brand new China Spallation Neutron Source in Dongguan.