Application of neutrons for structural studies

The application of neutron diffraction for certain specific investigations in basic and applied research, in the context of the new facilities that have now become (or likely to become) available with the new Dhruva reactor at Trombay are briefly discussed. The availability of the new high flux Dhruva reactor coupled with the development of sophisticated computer controlled instruments and the use of position sensitive detectors (PSD) have now pushed up the data rates of neutron scattering experiments by over an order of magnitude and in the process have also enabled new classes of experiments. These technological advances along with the recent advances in techniques such as the profile-refinement techniques have imparted a fresh impetus to neutron structural investigations. In the context of these developments, the status of following class of investigations is discussed: (1) structure studies by single crystal neutron diffraction, (2) structure refinement by neutron profile analyses, (3) texture analyses, (4) measurement of residual stresses, and (5) small angle neutron scattering (SANS) studies. (author). 36 refs., 12 figs