The new SANS instrument at the Swiss spallation source SINQ

With the start-up of the neutron spallation source SINQ at PSI an instrument for small angle neutron scattering became operational and is open for the user community. The instrument is equipped with state-of-the-art components and compares well with the world's largest and most powerful facilities of this kind. Great emphasis was put on providing a flexible, universal multi-user facility which guaranties a comfortable and reliable operation. In the present paper, the layout of the instrument is presented, the main components are described, and the performance is illustrated by selected examples