First experimental implementation of pulse shaping for neutron diffraction on pulsed sources

One of the central issues in the design and the use of pulsed neutron sources is the control of pulse length in elastic scattering experiments, most significantly diffraction on crystalline matter. On the existing short pulse spallation sources the strongly wavelength dependent source pulse length that determines the resolution is permanently fixed on each beam line by the type of the moderator it faces. We have experimentally implemented for the first time the wavelength frame multiplication (WFM) multiplexing chopper method, an earlier proposed variant of the by now fully tested repetition rate multiplication technique for inelastic scattering spectroscopy on pulsed neutron sources. We have operated the time-of-flight diffractometer at the continuous reactor source at BNC in an unconventional multiplexing mode that emulates a pulsed source. As a full proof of principle of the WFM method we have experimentally demonstrated the extraction from each source pulse a series of polychromatic, chopper shaped neutron pulses, which can continuously cover any wavelength band. The achieved 25 μs FWHM pulse length is shorter than that can be obtained at all at short pulse spallation sources for cold neutrons. The method allows us to build efficient, high and variable resolution diffractometers at long pulse spallation sources.