Exploring matter with Neutrons Encyclopedia

Multimedia Education and Courses in Nanotechnology

CD Review

  The role of large facilities in modern research is increasing both in quantity and quality. Despite their intrinsic negative aspects (organisation of the requests, filtering of the proposals submitted to scientific committees, slow evolution of the instrumentation), the possibilities opened by recent synchrotron sources, neutron sources or accelerators attract an increasing number of users from very different disciplines. A large part of the most important experimental results come today from these installations.
  Very early on, about 60 years ago, E. Fermi and other pioneers realised that the properties of the neutron offered the prospect of a fantastic new tool to study the structure and the dynamics of condensed matter. The evolution of such studies confirmed their view and many neutron sources, some entirely dedicated to neutron scattering, have been built around the world, particularly in most of the main European countries. With the emergence of high flux reactors, substantial progress in instrumentation has been achieved, particularly at the European “Institut Laue-Langevin” at Grenoble. In the last few years the possibilities for neutron research have been extended with new sources either under construction or existing sources upgraded.
  However, probably because their situation is often external to the academic sphere, the opportunity to utilise such large facilities is still ignored
by a portion of potential users.
Moreover, the teaching of most

another direction in the consultation to be taken. Each page is illustrated either with a photograph or a short animation illustrating or exemplifying a short text explaining some notion or describing some technical aspect in a remarkably concise way. For example, the principle and operation of the spin-echo spectrometer is nicely presented with a short movie showing the Larmor precession of the neutron spin and the way the measurements are actually performed.

Alain Filhol with 154 contributors (Nanopolis, 2006, orders: http://www.nanopolis.net)

  Each technical or scientific term appears in a different colour allowingone to see immediately its definition and the eventual developments related to it.
  Consequently, the organisation of the presentation is like a strongly connected network. The scientific level is not too high and remains always accessible to undergraduate students. Obviously, the purpose is to introduce neutron scattering in all its scientific and technical domains to potential users. Nevertheless, frequent users of neutron scattering facilities may benefit from the beautiful and concise presentation, even discovering some new aspects.
  The CD goes a little beyond its announced scope and presents some short notices about historical features (including photographs of the main scientists) as well as side aspects of neutron sources, such as nuclear power plants and even a reference to the accident at Chernobyl.
  There is also an English-French version of the CD. It is possible to jump at any time from one version to the other, keeping the same page, which may be useful for users interested in the respective spelling of technical concepts. Unfortunately, there are many mistakes and spelling errors in the French version. New editions need a careful revision of the translations.

José Teixeira,
Laboratoire Léon Brillouin, Saclay, France

university courses on experimental physics reserves only a small place to them. In this context, any action in favour of a better knowledge of the possibilities existing in different European large facilities would be welcome and should be supported by national scientific authorities as well as at the European level.
  The CD "Exploring matter with neutrons" produced by Nanopolis (issued from the Romanian company iMediasoft) with the collaboration of seven of the major neutron centres is intended to address all aspects of neutron research. It is one of a series of 3 CDs, the other two being dedicated to synchrotron sources and to nanotechnologies.
  The CD content is divided into five sections: Science, Sources, Tools of Neutron Physics, Applications and a short presentation of the facilities which participated to the preparation of the CD.
  It is organised like an interactive encyclopaedia with many links that allow the clarification of a concept, the development of a theme or simply