Small-angle neutron scattering instrument at MINT

The Small Angle Neutron Scattering (SANS) Instrument has been developed at Malaysian Institute for Nuclear Technology Research (MINT) for studying structural properties of materials on the length scale 1 nm to 100 nm. This is the length scale which is relevant for many topics within soft condensed matter, like polymers, colloids, biological macromolecules, etc. The SANS is a complementary technique to X-ray and electron scattering. However, while these later techniques give information on structures near surface, SANS concerns the structure of the bulk. Samples studied by SANS technique are typically bulk materials of the sizes mm's to cm's, or materials dissolved in a liquid. This paper described the general characteristics of SANS instrument as well as the experimental formulation in neutron scattering. The preliminary results obtained by this instrument are shown