New detectors for powders diagrams

During the last few years, all the classical neutron diffractometers for powders have used one or maybe a few counters. So, it takes a long time to obtain a diagram which causes many disadvantages: 1) very long experiments: one or two days (or flux on the sample about 106n/cm2/a); 2) necessity of big samples: many cm3; 3) necessity of having the whole diagram before changing anything in the experiment: magnetic field, temperature, quality of the sample; 4) necessity of having collimators of a few times ten minutes to obtain correct statistics in the diagram. Because of these disadvantages, several attempts have been made to speed up the experimental procedure such as using more counters, the detection of neutrons on a resistive wire, etc. In Grenoble, new position-sensitive detectors have been constructed using a digital technique