POWTEX – the high-intensity time-of-flight diffractometer at FRM II for structure analysis of polycrystalline materials

In order to provide the large chemistry and materials science as well as the geosciences communities with a powerful tool for rapid data acquisition, a time-of-flight powder diffractometer to be installed at the new Munich reactor has been designed. The time-of-flight technique is expected to outperform a monochromator instrument by at least an order of magnitude in data acquisition time, particularly on small samples of less than a cubic centimetre. The construction of this innovative type of diffractometer utilizes modern components such as focusing super-mirror neutron guides, a four-unit high-speed disk chopper system and linear position-sensitive detectors covering a solid angle of about 2π steradian. The diffractometer design enables an easy enlargement of the focal spot size and is therefore equally well suited for the texture analysis of large geological and archaeological samples.