AN ASSESSMENT OF THE CENTER FOR NEUTRON 

RESEARCH AT THE NATIONAL INSTITUTE OF 

STANDARDS AND TECHNOLOGY 

FISCAL YEAR 2021 

Panel on Assessment of the Center for Neutron Research at the National Institute of Standards and 

Technology

Laboratory Assessments Board 

Division on Engineering and Physical Sciences 

A Consensus Study Report of 
THE NATIONAL ACADEMIES PRESS 500 Fifth Street, NW Washington, DC 20001 

This activity was supported by Contract No. SB134117CQ0017 with the National Institute of Standards 

and Technology. Any opinions, findings, conclusions, or recommendations expressed in this publication 

do not necessarily reflect the views of any organization or agency that provided support for the project. 

International Standard Book Number-13: 978-0-309-27456-2 

International Standard Book Number-10: 0-309-27456-7 

Digital Object Identifier: https://doi.org/10.17226/26418 

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Suggested citation: National Academies of Sciences, Engineering, and Medicine. 2022. An Assessment of 

the Center for Neutron Research at the National Institute of Standards and Technology: Fiscal Year 2021. 

Washington, DC: The National Academies Press. https://doi.org/10.17226/26418.
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Consensus Study Reports published by the National Academies of Sciences, Engineering, and 

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v

PANEL ON ASSESSMENT OF THE CENTER FOR NEUTRON RESEARCH AT THE 

NATIONAL INSTITUTE OF STANDARDS AND TECHNOLOGY 

CHERRY A. MURRAY, NAS1

/NAE,2 University of Arizona, Chair 

SIMON J.L. BILLINGE, Columbia University and Brookhaven National Laboratory 

OLIVIA A. GRAEVE, University of California, San Diego 

ANDREW HARRISON, Diamond Light Source, Ltd. 

ANDREW JACKSON, European Spallation Source 

DALE E. KLEIN, University of Texas, Austin 

TONYA L. KUHL, University of California, Davis 

EMILIA MOROSAN, Rice University 

ANDREW G. STEPHEN, Frederick National Laboratory for Cancer Research 

MICHAEL TSAPATSIS, Johns Hopkins University 

Staff 

ALAN T. CRANE, Senior Scientist 

AZEB GETACHEW, Senior Program Assistant 

EVA LABRE, Administrative Coordinator 

JAMES P. MCGEE, Former Director 

MARTIN OFFUTT, Senior Program Officer 

1

 Member, National Academy of Sciences. 

2

 Member, National Academy of Engineering. 
vi

LABORATORY ASSESSMENTS BOARD 

JENNIE S. HWANG, NAE,1

 H-Technologies Group, Chair

MICHAEL I. BASKES, NAE, Los Alamos National Laboratory 

KEVIN MACK GATES II, Strategic Analysis, Inc. 

WESLEY L. HARRIS, NAE, Massachusetts Institute of Technology 

W. CARL LINEBERGER, NAS,2

 University of Colorado, Boulder 

AJAY P. MALSHE, NAE, Purdue University 

C. KUMAR N. PATEL, NAS/NAE, Pranalytica, Inc. 

ELSA REICHMANIS, NAE, Georgia Institute of Technology 

FRANCISCO F. ROBERTO, NAE, Newmont Corporation 

Staff 

ALAN T. CRANE, Senior Scientist 

AZEB GETACHEW, Senior Program Assistant 

EVA LABRE, Administrative Coordinator 

JAMES P. MCGEE, Former Director 

ARUL MOZHI, Senior Program Officer 

MARTIN OFFUTT, Senior Program Officer 

SCOTT WEIDMAN, Acting Director

1

 Member, National Academy of Engineering. 

2

 Member, National Academy of Sciences. 
vii

Acknowledgment of Reviewers 

This Consensus Study Report was reviewed in draft form by individuals chosen for their diverse 

perspectives and technical expertise. The purpose of this independent review is to provide candid and 

critical comments that will assist the National Academies of Sciences, Engineering, and Medicine in 

making each published report as sound as possible and to ensure that it meets the institutional standards 

for quality, objectivity, evidence, and responsiveness to the study charge. The review comments and draft 

manuscript remain confidential to protect the integrity of the deliberative process. 

We thank the following individuals for their review of this report: 

Meigan Aronson, University of British Columbia 

Frank Bates, University of Minnesota 

Peter F. Green, National Renewable Energy Laboratory 

Laura H. Greene, NAS, National MagLab and Florida State University 

Alan Hurd, Los Alamos National Laboratory 

Ivan K. Schuller, University of California, San Diego 

Kristine Svinicki, University of Michigan 

Although the reviewers listed above provided many constructive comments and suggestions, they 

were not asked to endorse the conclusions or recommendations of this report nor did they see the final 

draft before its release. The review of this report was overseen by David Weitz, Harvard University. He 

was responsible for making certain that an independent examination of this report was carried out in 

accordance with the standards of the National Academies and that all review comments were carefully 

considered. Responsibility for the final content rests entirely with the authoring committee and the 

National Academies. 

ix

Contents 

SUMMARY 1 

1 INTRODUCTION 6 

2 ADEQUACY OF FACILITIES, EQUIPMENT, AND HUMAN RESOURCES 8 

3 ADEQUACY OF INSTRUMENTATION 18 

4 TECHNICAL ADEQUACY 26 

5 PORTFOLIO OF SCIENTIFIC EXPERTISE 36 

6 DISSEMINATION OF OUTPUTS 43 

7 FINDINGS, CONCLUSIONS, AND RECOMMENDATIONS 49 

APPENDIXES 

A NCNR Instruments 57 

B Acronyms 58 

C Prominent Journals with Articles by NCNR Researchers 60 

D Citations of Papers by NCNR Researchers 61 

1 

Summary 

At the request of the Director of the National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST), in 2021 

the National Academies of Sciences, Engineering, and Medicine formed the Panel on Assessment of the 

Center for Neutron Research at the National Institute of Standards and Technology (the panel) and 

formulated the following statement of task for the panel: 

The National Academies of Sciences, Engineering, and Medicine Panel on Assessment of the National 

Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST) Center for Neutron Research will assess the scientific and 

technical work performed by the NIST Center for Neutron Research. The panel will review technical 

reports and technical program descriptions prepared by NIST staff and will visit the facilities of the NIST 

laboratory. The visit will include technical presentations by NIST staff, demonstrations of NIST projects, 

tours of NIST facilities, and discussions with NIST staff. The panel will deliberate findings, conclusions, 

and recommendations in a closed session panel meeting and will prepare a report summarizing its 

assessment of findings, conclusions, and recommendations. 

The assessment shall be responsive to the charge from the NIST Director. The following are the 

criteria for the assessment: 

1. The technical merit of the current laboratory program relative to current state-of-the-art programs 

worldwide; 

2. The portfolio of scientific expertise as it supports the ability of the organization to achieve its 

stated objectives; 

3. The adequacy of the laboratory budget, facilities, equipment, and human resources, as they affect 

the quality of the laboratory’s technical programs; and 

4. The effectiveness by which the laboratory disseminates its program outputs. 

In order to accomplish this assessment, the National Academies assembled a panel of 10 volunteers, 

whose collective expertise corresponds well with the research done at the NIST Center for Neutron 

Research (NCNR). Owing to the ongoing COVID-19 pandemic, this is the first NCNR review to be held 

virtually, and the panel is grateful to the NCNR leadership and staff for their extra work to make this 

effective. The panel members participated in a virtual review of NCNR on July 20–22, 2021. 

NCNR, with a total annual budget of $60 million (about $48 million appropriated by the U.S. 

Congress and the rest from other sources) and a staff of 202, is one of six major research organizational 

units consisting of five laboratories and one user facility at NIST.1

 It is one of only three neutron 

scattering user facilities in the United States, with 30 instruments, supporting roughly one-third of the 

U.S. neutron scattering instruments and users.2,3 Over the 2020 reporting year, NCNR served 3,068 

1

 R.Dimeo, NIST, 2021, presentation to the Panel on Assessment of the Center for Neutron Research, July 21. 

2

 BESAC, 2020, “The Scientific Justification for a U.S. Domestic High-Performance Reactor-Based Research 

Facility,” Report of the Basic Energy Sciences Advisory Committee, U.S. Department of Energy/Office of 

Science/July 2020, https://science.osti.gov/-/media/bes/besac/pdf/Reports/US_Domestic_HighPerformance_Reactor-Based_Research_Facility.pdf?la=en&hash=291CD65F6F02D66C9C7987CB6E660831BB0E

1A0B. 3

 American Physical Society, “Neutrons for the Nation: Discovery and Applications While Minimizing the Risk 

of Nuclear Proliferation,” July 2019, https://www.aps.org/policy/reports/popareports/upload/APSNeutronsfortheNation.pdf. 
2 

researchers. Research participants were from 19 NIST divisions and offices, 36 U.S. government 

laboratories, 44 U.S. states and the District of Columbia, 49 U.S. corporations, and 169 U.S. universities.4

NCNR and its users conduct world-class, highly cited research in soft matter and biology, hard matter, 

chemical and engineering physics, and fundamental neutron physics studies. Despite instrument staffing 

levels much below international norms,5

 major instruments have been brought on line: the Chromatic 

Analysis Neutron Diffractometer or Reflector (CANDoR) provides transformative new capabilities in 

time-resolved and polarized reflectometry; Very Small Angle Neutron Scattering (vSANS), a unique 

instrument worldwide, has been commissioned; major progress has been made on Neutron Interference 

Microscopy/Far Field Neutron Imaging; and plans and funding have been acquired to upgrade the 

Neutron Spin-Echo Spectrometer (NSE), a significant step up in performance that will make the 

capability internationally competitive. Tour de force groundbreaking experiments have demonstrated the 

significant advance of reactor sources for time-resolved elastic and inelastic neutron scattering with 

atomic resolution on millisecond time scales to measure response to perturbations of materials using timestamped data and a complex sample environment on the Multi-Axis Crystal Spectrometer (MACS). The 

project to add a new deuterium cold neutron source is on track, as well as the designs for upgrading the 

beamlines Neutron Guides (NG) 5, 6, and 7 with supermirrors that will be put in place during the planned 

shutdown in calendar year 2023 to install the new cold source. 

The long-standing collaboration with the National Science Foundation (NSF) through the Center for 

High Resolution Neutron Scattering (CHRNS), which provides investment in beamline and specialenvironment staff that is essential for external user support and outreach, was continued for another 5 

years in 2020. NCNR has developed and maintained effective partnerships with several universities and 

industry, including an industrial consortium on soft matter named nSoft, and successfully won funding for 

the development of several new instruments and upgrades. Neutron scattering worldwide is currently 

losing instrument capacity with the closure of sources in both North America (Chalk River, LANSCE) 

and Europe (HZB BER II, LLB Saclay). Continued investment in neutron instrumentation at NCNR is a 

vital part of the worldwide neutron scattering landscape. 

However, flat budgets for NCNR for several years have caused a reduction of scientific staff by 18 

since 2018, reducing capabilities essential for a world-class user facility and reducing NCNR’s ability to 

develop and continuously upgrade cutting-edge instruments, necessary for an old reactor to increase 

scientific productivity. NCNR has below 5 staff per instrument compared to 7 for the Institut LaueLangevin (ILL). Improvements in efficiency and technology developments have reached their limits of 

maximizing the efforts of the current staff over the past 7 years of flat budgets. If this continues, it is 

likely to even more greatly impact staff morale and the scientific productivity of the facility. 

NCNR has a robust education and outreach program at all levels, from local middle-school teachers 

to postdoctoral fellows, run through CHRNS. The flagship neutron scattering summer school was run as a 

virtual program in 2020. 

Until 2020, NCNR has had an excellent safety and reliability record and has delivered a 4-year 

average of 220 days of operation per year. The NCNR reactor is among the oldest operating large 

research reactors in the world, at more than 50 years of age. The current U.S. Nuclear Regulatory 

Commission (NRC) license will expire in 2029, and a new operating license application will be required. 

There are plans to change the nuclear fuel from high enriched uranium (HEU) to low enriched uranium 

(LEU) during that same year. Owing to the onset of the global COVID-19 pandemic, NCNR suspended 

operations of the reactor from March 17, 2020, and restarted it on July 15, 2020, with reduced staffing, 

internal use only of the instruments, and some support for mail-in external user operations. The reactor 

and beamline instruments ran in this way for three run cycles, with an intention to begin another cycle in 

February 2021. On February 3, 2021, the reactor experienced an automatic unplanned shutdown owing to 

fission products detected in the confinement building upon normal startup. The reactor remains shut down 

4

 NIST Center for Neutron Research, 2020 Accomplishments and Opportunities, 

https://nvlpubs.nist.gov/nistpubs/SpecialPublications/NIST.SP.1257.pdf, accessed October 22, 2021. 5

 BESAC, 2020. 
3 

while NCNR determines the cause of the incident, implements corrective and preventative actions, and 

requests a restart from the NRC. 

The scientific case for restarting and replacing the reactor is clearly very strong. The economic 

benefits to the United States from the improved technologies that result from these scientific advances are 

also very large and will be quantified in a study that NIST commissioned in 2021. In order to support the 

U.S. user community and NIST’s internal needs, it is imperative to restart the NCNR reactor as quickly 

and safely as possible, plan ahead for continued enhancement of the beamline instruments, and build new 

instruments, and even more important, building on a recommendation of the 2018 NCNR Review,6

 is for 

NCNR to provide an updated science case, and design and request the funding for a new reactor 

optimized for the needs 50 years into the future of NIST and the U.S. scientific community and U.S. 

industry. Of relevance to NIST’s mission of enhancing the competitiveness of U.S. manufacturing, 

neutrons play a distinct role in the measurement of materials properties. They are uncharged and have 

deep penetration of solids relevant to bulk measurements needed for industry—for example, they are used 

to measure the porosity of rock for mining; they measure nondestructively the chemical profile, bulk 

modulus, and embrittlement of industrial-relevant materials such as cement and steel; and their unique 

atomic interactions with isotopes are used to map out light elements, including hydrogen placement in 

soft materials such as polymers and biological systems and drugs, lithium ion batteries, fluid flow in fuel 

cells, and internal combustion engines. In addition, because neutrons have a spin, polarized neutron 

scattering are uniquely used to study the complex magnetic structure and dynamics of materials at atomic 

scale—directly relevant to new materials used in spintronics and quantum sensors and computation 

devices relevant to competitiveness and national security. 

Neutron activation analysis is used at NIST in a suite of chemical analysis methods to determine the 

elemental composition of materials in support of standards and reference materials. Neutron activation 

analysis can measure the hydrogen content of materials and is often required to certify Standard 

Reference Materials (SRMs), especially if they are difficult to dissolve. Since 2000, it has contributed to 

the certification of more than 120 SRMs.7

 According to the Director of NCNR, in the calendar years 

2019–2020, the 12 SRMs analyzed by neutron methods represents approximately 70 percent of the SRM 

unit sales for the 35 SRMs that included elemental analysis. 

NCNR has developed new nondestructive in situ measurement capabilities and analysis methods for 

materials of importance to industry such as depth profiling, and to society in general such as 

nondestructive measurement techniques for stress measurements and corrosion of cement structures such 

as bridges. NCNR has provided measurement capabilities and services to industry, national defense, and 

homeland security needs, including supporting the nSoft consortium of industrial partners using smallangle neutron scattering to measure biological and polymeric materials of interest to the medical devices 

and pharmaceutical industry. Multiple case studies of successful innovations for industry from NCNR are 

listed on NIST’s web pages.8 

KEY FINDINGS AND RECOMMENDATIONS 

The panel determined that the following issues merit the Center’s attention. More detail is provided in 

the final chapter of this report. 

6

 National Academies of Science, Engineering, and Medicine, 2018, An Assessment of the National Institute of 

Standards and Technology Center for Neutron Research: Fiscal Year 2018, The National Academies Press, 

Washington, DC, https://www.nap.edu/catalog/25282/an-assessment-of-the-center-for-neutron-research-at-thenational-institute-of-standards-and-technology. 7

 BESAC, 2020. 

8

 See https://www.nist.gov/industry-impacts, accessed January 24, 2022. 
4 

Key Finding: The NCNR reactor (known as the National Bureau of Standards Reactor, or NBSR) is 

among the oldest operating large research reactors in the world, at more than 50 years of age. The 

current U.S. Nuclear Regulatory Commission (NRC) license will expire in 2029, and a new operating 

license application will be required. There are plans to change the nuclear fuel from high enriched 

uranium (HEU) to low enriched uranium (LEU). When operating an aging nuclear reactor, there are 

known issues that need to be addressed. Unfortunately, there are also unknown aging issues that can 

arise and can be very difficult to address. The design, construction, and licensing of a new research 

reactor will be lengthy and costly, on the order of 10 years and a billion dollars. 

Key Finding: The National Bureau of Standards Test Reactor (NBSR) staff has given some 

consideration to a new reactor concept and a study has been commissioned on the economic impacts 

of reactor-based neutron scattering. The planning process for a new reactor has begun but is moving 

slowly without new funding for a science case and for design of a new reactor tailored for cold 

neutron instruments and using LEU fuel. A long shutdown of NCNR would have a major impact on 

both the U.S. fundamental research effort as well as U.S. industrial competitiveness. 

Key Conclusion: Additional input is warranted from the research community to understand its needs, 

more detailed design concepts, and a more robust cost estimate for the new reactor. It is important to 

have a design that is optimized for LEU fuel and that allows for future modifications because the new 

reactor should operate for 50 years. The opportunity here is to rethink the needs for science with 

neutrons 50 years out for both industry and the U.S. scientific community and to provide that case to 

Congress in order to obtain the funding for a new reactor able to meet those needs. 

KEY RECOMMENDATION: The Director of the National Institute of Standards and 

Technology (NIST) Center for Neutron Research (NCNR) should take a leadership role and 

own this mission with full support of NIST. The Director of NCNR should commission a study 

to define what the research community needs for the next 50 years in addition to the economic 

study already commissioned. In parallel and starting as soon as possible, the Director of NIST 

and the Director of NCNR should be proactive with the Visiting Committee on Advanced 

Technology, the User Group Executive Committee, the local community, the U.S. Nuclear 

Regulatory Commission (NRC) and the appropriate congressional committees to ensure 

support and to build the case for constructing a new research reactor. 

Key Finding: The long-term impact of 7 years of flat budgets has caused a reduction of NCNR 

instrument staff by 20 percent to a level considerably below that of international standards. 

Key Conclusion: Excellent in-house staff attracts and enables effective partnerships with excellent 

external groups and is essential to world-class scientific output. It is critical to continue to maintain a 

pipeline of such staff (e.g., through Ph.D. and postdoctoral programs) with a broad portfolio of 

instrumentation capacity and capability. 

Key Conclusion: The reduction of instrument staff, already low by international standards, is 

reducing capabilities essential for a world-class user facility and reducing NCNR’s ability to develop 

and continuously upgrade cutting-edge instruments, necessary for a very old reactor to increase 

scientific productivity. Improvements in efficiency and technology developments have reached their 

limits of maximizing the efforts of the current staff over the past 7 years of flat budgets. If this 

continues, it is likely to even more greatly impact staff morale and the scientific productivity of the 

facility. More staff is needed in hardware and especially software to realize the potential of timeresolved studies. 
5 

Key Finding: Upgrades or planned upgrades to several instruments will bring them to par or nearly 

to par with global counterparts. These are the Neutron Spin Echo Spectrometer (NSE) upgrade and 

the Polarized Large Angle Resolution Spectrometer (PoLAR) secondary continuous-angle multiple 

energy analysis spectrometer for the Spin Polarized Inelastic Neutron Spectrometer (SPINS) 

replacement. 

Key Conclusion: The upgrades and continual enhancements to instruments is owing to the 

outstanding quality of NCNR staff, with time to perform its own research and to collaborate on 

science with external users. It is essential for continued success at NCNR that the instrument staff can 

continue to perform its own research, thus attracting and retaining the best staff and users, and that 

this program of upgrades and enhancements is supported as a core part of facility operations to meet 

its mission to the user community. 

KEY RECOMMENDATION: The National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST) 

Center for Neutron Research (NCNR) leadership should work with NIST leadership to ensure 

the support of NCNR at the level of staffing it needs to continue to develop upgrades and 

enhancements to instruments to ensure a world-class user facility. 
6 

1 

Introduction 

At the request of the National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST), the National Academies 

of Sciences, Engineering, and Medicine has, since 1959, annually assembled panels of experts from 

academia, industry, medicine, and other scientific and engineering communities to assess the quality and 

effectiveness of the NIST measurements and standards laboratories, of which there are now five,1

 plus the 

NIST Center for Neutron Research (NCNR; classified as a User Facility), as well as the adequacy of their 

resources. The context of this technical assessment is the mission of NIST, which is to promote U.S. 

innovation and industrial competitiveness by advancing measurement science, standards, and technology 

in ways that enhance economic security and improve the quality of life. The NIST laboratories conduct 

research to anticipate future metrology and standards needs, to enable scientific and technological 

advances, and to improve and refine existing measurement methods and services. 

In 2020, the Director of NIST asked the National Academies to appoint a panel on assessment of 

NCNR and provided it with the statement of task shown in Box 1.1. 

1

 The five NIST laboratories are the Engineering Laboratory, the Physical Measurement Laboratory, the 

Information Technology Laboratory, the Material Measurement Laboratory, and the Communications Technology 

Laboratory. 

BOX 1.1 

Statement of Task 

The National Academies of Sciences, Engineering, and Medicine Panel on Assessment of the National 

Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST) Center for Neutron Research will assess the scientific 

and technical work performed by the NIST Center for Neutron Research. The panel will review 

technical reports and technical program descriptions prepared by NIST staff and will visit the facilities 

of the NIST laboratory. The visit will include technical presentations by NIST staff, demonstrations of 

NIST projects, tours of NIST facilities, and discussions with NIST staff. The panel will deliberate 

findings, conclusions, and recommendations in a closed session panel meeting and will prepare a 

report summarizing its assessment of findings, conclusions, and recommendations. 

The assessment shall be responsive to the charge from the NIST Director. The following are the 

criteria for the assessment: 

1. The technical merit of the current laboratory program relative to current state-of-the-art 

programs worldwide; 

2. The portfolio of scientific expertise as it supports the ability of the organization to achieve its 

stated objectives; 

3. The adequacy of the laboratory budget, facilities, equipment, and human resources, as they 

affect the quality of the laboratory’s technical programs; and 

4. The effectiveness by which the laboratory disseminates its program outputs. 
7 

The Director of NIST asked that the panel consider following:2

1. Assess the organization’s technical programs. 

o How does the quality of the research compare to similar world-class research in the technical 

program areas? 

o Is the quality of the technical programs adequate for the organization to reach its stated 

technical objectives? How could it be improved? 

2. Assess the portfolio of scientific expertise within the organization. 

o Does the organization have world-class scientific expertise in the areas of the organization’s 

mission and program objectives? If not, what areas should be improved? 

o How well does the organization’s scientific expertise support the organization’s technical 

programs and the organization’s ability to achieve its stated objectives? 

3. Assess the adequacy of the organization’s facilities, equipment, and human resources. 

o How well do the facilities, equipment, and human resources support the organization’s 

technical programs and its ability to achieve its stated objectives? How could they be 

improved? 

4. Assess the effectiveness by which the organization disseminates its program outputs. 

o How well are the organization’s research programs driven by stakeholder needs? 

o How effective are the technology transfer mechanisms used by the organization? Are these 

mechanisms sufficiently comprehensive? 

o How well is the organization monitoring stakeholder use and impact of program outputs? 

o How could this be improved? 

The Director pointed out that in arriving at its assessments, the panel was to be sensitive to the overall 

mission of NIST, which is “to promote U.S. innovation and industrial competitiveness by advancing 

measurement science, standards, and technology in ways that enhance economic security and improve the 

quality of life.” The objectives of the research done at NIST laboratories are to anticipate future 

metrology and standards needs, to enable new scientific and technological advances, and to improve and 

refine existing measurement methods and services. 

In order to accomplish this assessment, the National Academies assembled a panel of 10 volunteers, 

whose collective expertise corresponds well with the research done at NCNR. Owing to the ongoing 

COVID-19 pandemic, this is the first NCNR review to be held virtually, and the panel is grateful to the 

NCNR leadership and staff for their extra work to make this effective. The panel members participated in 

a virtual review of NCNR on July 20–22, 2021. The review began with welcoming remarks and overview 

comments from the acting Director of NIST and from the Director of NCNR. Their talks were followed 

by scientific and technical presentations by NCNR staff and by users of NCNR. Ample time was provided 

for discussions with NCNR management, discussions with the User Group Executive Committee, and 

panel deliberation, but there were no tours or poster presentations. The panel was provided with copies of 

all presentations, NCNR annual reports, and copies of other studies relevant to neutron science in the 

United States, all of which provided valuable input for the preparation of this report. 

Time constraints did not allow the panel to explore all aspects of NCNR operations. Instead, the panel 

focused on the research that the leadership of NCNR chose to present to it and on a number of issues 

related to laboratory development that the panel identified as requiring particular attention. This report 

presents the panel’s observations and recommendations. Because the issues this panel was asked to 

address differed somewhat from those considered by earlier panels, this report should be regarded as 

complementing their reports, rather than as replacing them. 

2

 Presentation to the panel in a virtual pre-meeting with NCNR Director Rob Dimeo, June 29, 2021, noting the 

intent of NIST Director Dr. James Olthoff. 
8 

2 

Adequacy of Facilities, Equipment, and Human Resources 

THE CENTER FOR NEUTRON RESEARCH 

This review comes at an unprecedented time for the National Institute of Standards and Technology 

(NIST) Center for Neutron Research (NCNR). First, owing to the onset of the global COVID-19 

pandemic, NCNR suspended operations of the reactor from March 17, 2020, and restarted it on July 15, 

2020, with reduced staffing, internal use only of the instruments, and some support for mail-in external 

user operations. The reactor and beamline instruments ran in this way for three run cycles, with an 

intention to begin another cycle in February 2021. 

On February 3, 2021, the reactor experienced an automatic unplanned shutdown owing to fission 

products detected in the confinement building upon normal startup. There were no health or safety 

impacts on personnel, the public, or the environment; however, the reactor remains shut down as NCNR 

determines the root cause of the incident, implements corrective and preventative actions, and requests a 

restart from the Nuclear Regulatory Commission (NRC).1

 This comes 2 years before the planned 11-

month reactor shutdown set to begin in calendar year 2023 to upgrade the cold neutron source from 

hydrogen to deuterium before switching from high enriched uranium (HEU) to low enriched uranium 

(LEU) fuel currently scheduled to occur in late 2029. 

The unplanned shutdown has greatly affected the U.S. neutron scattering community. Before the 

shutdown, all neutron beamlines in the United States were oversubscribed: there were roughly three times 

as many proposals as there was beamtime at NCNR and the other two major U.S. neutron user facilities 

run by the Department of Energy (DOE) located at Oak Ridge National Laboratory, the High-Flux 

Isotope Reactor (HFIR) and the Spallation Neutron Source (SNS). The impact of NCNR’s shutdown on 

the U.S. scientific neutron scattering community can be estimated by the number of scientific papers 

produced by NCNR users in 2019 (just over 300) compared to those produced at HFIR and SNS together 

(650). Also, during that year before COVID-19, NCNR worked with more than 50 U.S. industrial users. 

Given that there is already an inadequacy in beamtime provided by the combination of user facilities, 

approximately one-third of the users’ beamtime will be lost until NCNR can be restarted, significantly 

impacting the neutron scattering community and the materials research of U.S. industry. If one counts the 

number of beamlines in Europe and Asia in both the older and the newer neutron facilities that are 

currently or soon to be commissioned, the three current U.S. facilities before the shutdown lagged Europe 

by a factor of 3 and Asia by a factor of 2.2

 The NCNR shutdown has removed roughly one-third of the 

1

 NIST submitted an analysis to the NRC on October 1, 2021, that identified five root causes, including 

inadequate operator training and 10 contributing factors, such as a loss of experienced operators. In enclosures to the 

cover letter to the NRC, NIST identified 13 corrective actions that it would take before restart to prevent a 

recurrence and 15 measures after restart. See https://www.nrc.gov/docs/ML2127/ML21274A018.html. 2

 BESAC, 2020, “The Scientific Justification for a U.S. Domestic High-Performance Reactor-Based Research 

Facility,” Report of the Basic Energy Sciences Advisory Committee, U.S. Department of Energy/Office of 

Science/July 2020, https://science.osti.gov/-/media/bes/besac/pdf/Reports/US_Domestic_HighPerformance_Reactor-Based_Research_Facility.pdf?la=en&hash=291CD65F6F02D66C9C7987CB6E660831BB0E

1A0B. 
9 

existing U.S. beamlines and the majority of the U.S. cold neutron instruments, including exquisite sample 

environment facilities and operations. 

The health of NIST is crucial for U.S. competitiveness for our commercial and military needs and for 

fundamental metrology research applications and standards. U.S. innovation particularly depends on 

fundamental research, and NIST cannot retain its world prominence without it. A world-class leading 

neutron experimental facility operated by NIST in the future will ensure that the United States maintains 

competitiveness across the globe in neutron research and that industry is supported. A long shutdown of 

NCNR would have a major impact on both the U.S. fundamental research effort as well as U.S. industrial 

competitiveness. The other U.S. neutron sources and European and Asian sources cannot make up the 

capacity loss or provide the domestic industrial impact of NCNR. 

In order to support the U.S. user community and NIST’s internal needs, it is imperative to safely 

restart the NCNR reactor as quickly as possible, plan ahead for enhancement of the beamline instruments, 

and build new instruments, and even more important, as was recommended by the 2018 NCNR Review,3

to provide an updated science case, design, and find the funding for a new reactor optimized for the needs 

of NIST, U.S. industry, and the U.S. science community in the next several decades. 

Historical Overview 

Because of the usefulness of neutrons in materials characterization, NIST, formerly the National 

Bureau of Standards (NBS), was one of the first U.S. agencies to obtain a reactor neutron source for inhouse measurements to better provide for its mission to promote U.S. innovation and industrial 

competitiveness by advancing measurement science, standards, and technology in ways that enhance 

economic security and improve the quality of life. The NBS reactor was commissioned in 1969, one of 

three large reactors in the United States commissioned in that decade, and NCNR has since then played a 

vital role in NBS and then NIST internal research, calibration and metrology, and standards development 

as well as providing an outsized role in advancing neutron scattering in the United States as a user facility 

for the external scientific academic, national laboratories, and industrial communities.4

 

Neutrons play a distinct role in the measurement of materials properties. They are uncharged and 

interact with atomic nuclei and thus have deep penetration of solids relevant to bulk measurements 

needed for industry—for example, they can be used to measure the porosity of rock for mining; they can 

measure nondestructively the chemical profile, bulk modulus, and embrittlement of industrial-relevant 

materials such as cement and steel; and their unique atomic interactions with isotopes can be used to map 

out light elements, including hydrogen placement in soft materials such as polymers and biological 

systems, lithium ion batteries, fluid flow in fuel cells, and internal combustion engines. In addition, 

because neutrons have a spin, polarized neutron scattering can be uniquely used to study the complex 

magnetic structure and dynamics of materials at atomic scale—directly relevant to new materials used in 

spintronics and quantum sensors and computation devices. 

NIST’s internal use of the reactor for mission-related activities has been extensive. The Chemical 

Sciences Division of the Materials Measurement Laboratory (MML) uses neutron activation analysis in a 

suite of chemical analysis methods to determine the elemental composition of materials in support of 

standards and reference materials. Neutron activation analysis can measure the hydrogen content of 

materials and is often required to certify Standard Reference Materials (SRMs), especially if they are 

difficult to dissolve. Since 2000, it has contributed to the certification of more than 120 SRMs.5

3

 National Academies of Science, Engineering, and Medicine, 2018, An Assessment of the National Institute of 

Standards and Technology Center for Neutron Research: Fiscal Year 2018, The National Academies Press, 

Washington, DC, https://www.nap.edu/catalog/25282/an-assessment-of-the-center-for-neutron-research-at-thenational-institute-of-standards-and-technology. 4

 BESAC, 2020. 

5

 BESAC, 2020. 
10 

According to the Director of NCNR, in the calendar years 2019–2020, the 12 SRMs analyzed by neutron 

methods represent approximately 70 percent of the SRM unit sales for the 35 SRMs that included 

elemental analysis. MML and NCNR also support the nSoft consortium of industrial partners using smallangle neutron scattering to measure biological and polymeric materials of interest to the industrial 

members. 

They also have developed new nondestructive in situ measurement capabilities and analysis methods 

for materials of importance to industry such as depth profiling, and to society in general such as 

nondestructive measurement techniques for corrosion of cement structures such as bridges. The Physical 

Measurements Laboratory has used its special beamlines at NCNR to perform high-resolution 

measurements of the properties of neutrons and basic parameters and symmetries of the weak nuclear 

interaction for fundamental physics, and to provide measurement capabilities and services to industry, 

national defense, and homeland security needs. 

NCNR also has served the needs of the U.S. scientific community in a general user program based on 

peer-reviewed proposals, in partnerships with government, industry, and academic institutions, and allows 

proprietary research with full cost recovery. NCNR technical staff members perform their own research 

as well as develop new instruments, sample environments and data management capabilities, and 

collaborate with and assist external users who have been awarded beam time on a particular instrument. 

This has led to high scientific productivity and excellent staff retention and morale. A long partnership 

with NSF has been instrumental in developing new beamline and sample environment capabilities, 

especially utilizing cold neutrons. This partnership has also provided education and state-of-the-art 

neutron scattering techniques along with five beamlines and instruments for outside users. Now one of 

three major neutron scattering sources in the United States, NCNR has awarded more than 200 in each 

call for proposals, with about 2 calls each year, and served roughly 2,800 external and 200 internal NIST 

users.6

 From 2016 to 2019, pre-COVID-19, NCNR has had an excellent safety and reliability record of 98 

percent and has delivered an average of 220 days of operation per year. NCNR has a worldwide 

reputation as an excellent and creative user facility that is cost effective, with high scientific productivity 

despite fewer technical staff per instrument7

 and an aging reactor, and has attracted excellent outside users 

who produce world-leading results.8,9 

Accomplishments Since 2018 Review 

NCNR provided 212 days of beamtime with 98 percent reliability in 2019, served the internal needs 

of 19 NIST divisions and offices, and served 3,068 researchers and 50 companies.10 The onset of the 

ongoing global COVID-19 pandemic caused NCNR to suspend operations of the reactor from March 17, 

2020, through July 15, 2020, and to operate with reduced staffing, internal use only of the instruments, 

and some support for mail-in external user operations after July 15. The reactor and beamlines ran in this 

way for three run cycles, with an intention to begin another cycle in February 2021. NCNR staff reached 

out to its industrial collaborators and principal investigators of all accepted proposals and assisted them in 

remote operations with beamline scientists running the experiments. This worked reasonably well for the 

hard matter experiments, but less well for the soft matter experimentalists, who needed to make their 

6

 See https://www.nist.gov/ncnr/proposal-statistics. 

7

 “Neutron Users in Europe: Facility-Based Insights and Scientific Trends,” 

https://europeanspallationsource.se/sites/default/files/files/document/2018-06/NEUTRON%20USERS%20IN%20E

UROPE%20-%20Facility-Based%20Insights%20and%20Scientific%20Trends.pdf, accessed October 15, 2021. 8

 BESAC, 2020. 

9

 American Physical Society, “Neutrons for the Nation: Discovery and Applications While Minimizing the Risk 

of Nuclear Proliferation,” July 2019, https://www.aps.org/policy/reports/popareports/upload/APSNeutronsfortheNation.pdf. 10 NIST Center for Neutron Research, 2020 Accomplishments and Opportunities, 

https://nvlpubs.nist.gov/nistpubs/SpecialPublications/NIST.SP.1257.pdf, accessed October 22, 2021. 
11 

samples onsite. Because the beamline operations software is behind a NIST firewall, remote users cannot 

access it to run remotely without on-site beamline staff, and according to NCNR management there is 

insufficient technical support staff to handle all the external users remotely. Nevertheless, this was a 

remarkable achievement to maintain beamline operations, continue to bring new instruments on board, 

and produce science under stressful conditions, for which the management and staff of NCNR must be 

commended. 

On February 3, 2021, the reactor experienced an automatic unplanned shutdown owing to fission 

products detected in the confinement building upon normal startup. There were no health or safety 

impacts on personnel, the public, or the environment; however, the reactor remains shut down while 

NCNR determines the root cause of the incident, implements corrective and preventative actions, and 

requests a restart from the NRC. This comes just before the planned 11-month reactor shutdown set to 

begin in calendar year 2023 to increase the cold neutron flux by adding a new deuterium cold source 

before a scheduled shift from HEU to LEU fuel in late 2029. Since the shutdown, the NCNR beamline 

staff has assisted many users with currently allocated NCNR beamtime by locating beamtime on the other 

two major U.S. facilities, on European and Asian facilities where possible, and on smaller facilities run by 

universities. The scientific staff have pivoted to working on upgrade plans using where possible other 

neutron facilities for calibration and upgrades to beamlines, instruments, analysis of neutron scattering 

data in the context of other complementary techniques, molecular dynamics simulations to extract the 

most information possible on scientifically important topics, and use of artificial intelligence (AI), 

machine learning (ML), automation, and writing papers. The reactor engineering staff has focused work 

on the root cause analysis of the February 3 incident and the reactor cold neutron source project. 

The Center for High Resolution Neutron Scattering (CHRNS), a long-time and very successful 

partnership with the National Science Foundation (NSF), was renewed in 2020 for another 5 years, and 

strong partnerships with NSF, the University of Maryland, and the University of Delaware are developing 

user instruments and sample environments that are world class. Major instruments have been brought on 

line: the Chromatic Analysis Neutron Diffractometer or Reflector (CANDoR) provides transformative 

new capabilities in time-resolved and polarized scattering; Very Small Angle Neutron Scattering 

(vSANS), a unique instrument worldwide, has been commissioned; major progress has been made on 

Neutron Interference Microscopy/Far Field Neutron Imaging; and plans and funding have been acquired 

to upgrade the Neutron Spin-Echo Spectrometer (NSE), providing a significant step up in performance 

that makes the capability internationally competitive. The project to add a new deuterium cold neutron 

source is on track, as well as the designs for upgrading the beamlines NG-5, NG-6, and NG-7 with 

supermirrors that will be put in place during the planned shutdown in calendar year 2023 to install the 

new cold source. 

NCNR has a vibrant research program with above-average impact in terms of very highly cited 

papers. In a citation study by the Canadian group Science-Metrix, NCNR appears as the leading neutron 

facility in terms of average of relative citations.11 In this metric, the world average number of citations is 

1.0, and 1.2 would be 20 percent more citations than the average. NCNR scores nearly 2 (1.95) on this 

scale, with other world neutron facilities in the range 1.03 to 1.57 (for the period 2000–2017). The report 

also points out that “NCNR is ... the only institution examined to have displayed consistently high 

performances across most indicators.” 

NCNR continues to have a world-leading program in soft matter and biology research: especially 

notable work since 2018 was on self-assembled systems and membrane dynamics. A new focus on timeresolved measurements at millisecond time scales is in a sweet spot for soft condensed matter dynamics. 

The chemical, plastics, and consumer-goods industries require neutrons to determine the structure and 

function of liquids, gels, foams, emulsions, and solid materials, as demonstrated by the very active 

members of the nSoft consortium. More than 60 percent of all FDA-approved small molecule drugs target 

membrane proteins; however, their structural characterization is particularly challenging with standard 

11 “Science-Metrix Bibliometric Study on CNBCs Scientific Publications 1980–2017,” https://www.sciencemetrix.com/bibliometric-study-on-cnbcs-scientific-publications-1980-2017/, accessed January 13, 2022. 
12 

techniques such as X-ray diffraction. Further development of neutron reflectometry methods on supported 

membranes, along with the integration of molecular dynamics (MD) simulations, is likely to aid in the 

development of small molecule drugs to inhibit this challenging class of drug targets, which is of direct 

relevance to the U.S. pharmaceutical industry. NCNR’s scientific impact in hard condensed matter 

continues to be world class, with a steady flow of important work on topological spin excitations and 

unconventional superconductivity interacting with magnetism, of relevance to the development of future 

microelectronics and quantum devices for computing and cryptography. Tour de force groundbreaking 

experiments have demonstrated the significant advance of reactor sources for time-resolved elastic and 

inelastic neutron scattering with atomic resolution on millisecond time scales to measure response to 

perturbations of materials using time-stamped data and a complex sample environment on the Multi-Axis 

Crystal Spectrometer (MACS). Time-resolved measurements at these scales are critical to understand the 

dynamics of magnetic materials potentially useful for quantum devices especially suited to neutrons 

because of their unique interaction properties and spin. The neutron interferometry facility12,13 is one of 

four in the world and one of the best two. The neutron interferometry group is able to perform highprecision measurements thanks to very long, best in the world, stability of their instruments. A notable 

accomplishment was the introduction of the orbital angular momentum to create neutrino spin-orbit 

lattices in analog to optical lattices created by circularly polarized light.14 The group has also developed a 

novel measurement of the neutron charge radius. The alpha-gamma neutron metrology activity is a unique 

NIST capability that can measure the absolute activity of an alpha source and determines neutron fluence 

with a world-best precision of 0.06 percent. 

The most heavily cited work in chemical physics research focused on energy technologies. Notable 

achievements have been the characterization of tailored nanoparticles for photocatalysis in hydrogen 

generation and the detailed understanding of sorbent-sorbate interactions in metal organic frameworks for 

separations, of direct relevance to the chemical and energy industry. NCNR has also demonstrated direct 

industrial impact through the development and utilization of a mail-in sample program and an 

autonomous formulation laboratory with remote Small-Angle Neutron Scattering (SANS) and Small 

Angle X-Ray Scattering (SAXS) for the nSoft consortium, maintaining the ability to provide timely 

results for commercial impact during the pandemic and in the future without requiring industrial scientist 

presence on site. Other impacts have been the nondestructive measurements of Li distribution in batteries 

during operation, and by using simultaneous X-ray and neutron tomography to observe flows in fuel cells 

for General Motors and the Department of Energy (DOE) and to provide understanding of residual stress 

and strain caused by rapid melting and fast cooling encountered in additive manufacturing. In addition, 

NCNR maintained six active agreements with biotech and pharmaceutical companies. In support of U.S. 

industry, NCNR was a key contributor to a number of technological breakthroughs in this period, 

including gels for oral drug delivery, use of shear-thickening fluids in impact resistant applications, 

additives to jet fuel, and ion exchange membranes. 

Challenges and Opportunities 

Two unprecedented occurrences in 2020 and 2021 caused unplanned shutdowns of the reactor 

operations and radical changes to beamline operations. 

12 K. Weigandt, et al., NIST, 2021, “Neutron Interferometric Microscopy Small Forces and Hierarchical 

Structures,” presentation to the Panel on Assessment of the Center for Neutron Research, July 21. 13 J. Nico, NIST, 2021, “Recent Neutron Physics Group Activities at the NCNR,” presentation to the Panel on 

Assessment of the Center for Neutron Research by S. Dewey and D. Hussey, July 21. 14 D. Saranac, et al., “Generation and Detection of Spin-Orbit Couple Neutron Beams,” Proceedings of the 

National Academy of Sciences, October 8, 2019, www.pnas.org/content/116/41/20328, accessed January 20, 2022. 
13 

 First, the ongoing global COVID-19 pandemic caused a shutdown of reactor operations from 

March until July 2020, when there was a restart of internal use only and mail-in operations. Given 

the resurgence of variants of concern, low vaccination rates combined with the possibility of 

spread of the disease by the vaccinated, it is likely that running of NCNR will need to settle on a 

new normal in the future, including the ability for outside users to run instruments remotely. This 

is especially of importance to industry.15 The current operations software is behind the NIST 

firewall, and for remote operations it either needs to allow external users access and/or requires 

the hiring of more beamline scientists/operators to manage sample changes and run experiments 

for the external users in combination with more automation. The support of external users and 

especially of industry, a key NIST mission, may require more NCNR beamline scientists and 

technician staffing in the future. NCNR instrument staff numbers are already low by international 

standards. Fully automated and remote routine operations on some instruments could provide the 

opportunity to serve many more users, including those from universities and especially from 

companies who are not familiar with the power of neutron techniques. 

 Second, the February 3, 2021, unplanned shutdown provides a critical juncture for NCNR. The 

path to restart will likely be arduous, could involve NRC hearings, and could drive a difficult to 

manage community response and a hit to NCNR’s reputation; the cost for corrective actions and 

the target start date are currently unknown. There has already been an impact on partnerships, as 

NSF has withdrawn half of its funding of CHRNS for 1 year, and there may be more impact on 

other partnerships, including with industry, and staff morale the longer the shutdown continues. 

The NIST Director has provided funds to make up the loss of NSF funds for a year and those 

needed for the reactor recovery so far. If the allowed restart date runs into the planned shutdown 

date for the installation of the new cold source, there may be an impact on schedule and 

operations for the cold source and beamline upgrade as well as the partnership with NSF. There is 

an immediate large impact on the U.S. neutron scattering community, particularly for those 

requiring cold neutrons and for internal NIST users working on materials standards and physics 

experiments. Given the already heavily oversubscribed neutron beamline situation in the United 

States, the user community could be forced to move their experiments to Europe and Asia. 

Should this happen, there would be a major impact on U.S. industry materials research and 

development (R&D) and on standard reference materials requiring neutron activation. The 

opportunity here is to rethink the needs of both industry and the U.S. scientific community for 

new metrology and industrial uses and new science with neutrons 50 years out and to provide that 

“science case” to Congress in order to obtain the funding for a new reactor to be able to meet 

those needs. Many of these future compelling directions are clear from the work of NCNR 

mentioned in this report. However, as for any request to Congress for funding of a new large 

scientific facility, the science case is normally provided by a major commissioned study of 

experts and potential industrial users in the community both inside and outside NIST and should 

also make the case for the credentials and expertise of NCNR for operating such a facility and 

why it should be located in the United States as opposed to a partnership with another country. 

The design of the new reactor, its operator, and its location should then follow the requirements 

provided by the science case study and the estimated cost, schedule, community and regulatory 

environment. Because such a study may take up to 2 years to accomplish, it must be started as 

soon as possible, within the next year or so. This science case would add to the case of the 

economic study commissioned in 2021 by the NCNR Director. To minimize impact to the user 

community, it would be preferable to restart the reactor before the scheduled 2023 upgrade, but 

very difficult to plan under the circumstances. In addition, the scheduled downtime for the cold 

15 While this cannot be supported definitively, it reflects the growing opinion of those involved with this type of 

research infrastructure, including in Europe. In addition to potential restrictions on travel, accessibility questions that 

can be addressed only by remote access and also the question of environmental impact of travel have been raised. 
14 

source upgrade should not coincide with the planned HFIR HEU-LEU conversion and reactor 

vessel upgrade. 

Longer term concerns raised in the 2018 review and even earlier reviews have become more critical 

for the NCNR going forward. 

 NCNR has a total annual budget of $60 million (about $48 million appropriated by the U.S. 

Congress and the rest from other sources). The budget has been essentially flat for the past 7 

years. The long-term impact of flat budgets has caused a reduction of scientific staff by nearly 20 

percent because NCNR management reduced scientific staff to maintain staff required for reactor 

operation and safety. Despite the flat funding, NCNR has been remarkably productive, for which 

management and staff are to be commended. Current staffing is low by international standards: 

for example, fewer than 5 staff members per instrument, compared to 7 at ILL.16 Improvements in 

efficiency and technology developments have reached their limits of maximizing the efforts of 

the current staff. This is already reducing capabilities essential for a world-class user facility and 

reducing NCNR’s ability to develop and continuously upgrade cutting-edge instruments, 

necessary for an old reactor to increase scientific productivity, not to mention staffing up for more 

remote operations (see discussion above). This may cause a greater impact on staff morale and 

the scientific productivity of the facility. 

 The need for relicensing of the reactor in 2029 and the current plan for HEU to LEU conversion 

in the same year will challenge NCNR (extensive work required for relicensing, and increased but 

unknown cost of yet to be developed fuel) and increase the downtime for the U.S. scientific user 

community. 

 Europe and Asia have newer, better staffed, and more powerful neutron facilities and a 

compelling future vision compared to those of the United States.17,18 This may cause leading-edge 

scientists to move to work and do their research at the best facilities, not in the United States, and 

thus cause a large impact on U.S. competitiveness in science and in industrial materials R&D. 

 The planning process for a new reactor has begun but is moving slowly without new funding for a 

science case and for design of a new reactor tailored for cold neutron instruments and using LEU 

fuel. 

New challenges have also emerged since the 2018 review. 

 Maintaining open access to researchers has become more difficult with increasing security 

demands of scientific user facilities from the U.S. government. 

 Massive amounts of data and metadata are being generated from new and upgraded instruments 

and from the combination of simultaneous characterization techniques on the same sample, 

overwhelming current data management systems. 

 There is increasing demand for time-stamped data, metadata, and data storage utilizing the 

principles of Findability, Accessibility, Interoperability, and Reuse of Digital Assets (FAIR).19 

16 “Neutron Users in Europe: Facility-Based Insights and Scientific Trends,” 

https://europeanspallationsource.se/sites/default/files/files/document/2018-06/NEUTRON%20USERS%20IN%20E

UROPE%20-%20Facility-Based%20Insights%20and%20Scientific%20Trends.pdf, accessed October 15, 2021. 17 BESAC, 2020. 

18 “Neutron Users in Europe: Facility-Based Insights and Scientific Trends,” 

https://europeanspallationsource.se/sites/default/files/files/document/2018-06/NEUTRON%20USERS%20IN%20E

UROPE%20-%20Facility-Based%20Insights%20and%20Scientific%20Trends.pdf, accessed October 15, 2021. 19 See https://www.go-fair.org/fair-principles, accessed October 15, 2021. 
15 

 There is an opportunity for NIST and NCNR to lead the way in defining the standards for open 

data, data markup, and data management utilizing FAIR principles at large data rates. 

Finding: For five decades, the National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST) Center for 

Neutron Research (NCNR) has played a vital role in NBS and then NIST internal research, 

calibration and metrology, and standards development as well as providing an outsized role in 

advancing neutron scattering in the United States as a user facility for the external scientific 

academic, national laboratories, and industrial communities. 

Finding: Until 2021, NCNR has had an excellent safety and reliability record, and from 2016 to 2019 

has delivered an average of 220 days of operation per year. 

Finding: Owing to the onset of the global COVID-19 pandemic, NCNR suspended operations of the 

reactor from March 17, 2020, and restarted it on July 15, 2020, with reduced staffing, internal use 

only of the instruments, and some support for mail-in external user operations. The reactor and 

beamline instruments ran in this way for three run cycles, with an intention to begin another cycle in 

February 2021. On February 3, 2021, the reactor experienced an automatic unplanned shutdown 

owing to fission products detected in the confinement building upon normal startup. There were no 

health or safety impacts on personnel, the public, or the environment; however, the reactor remains 

shut down while NCNR determines the root cause of the incident, implements corrective and 

preventative actions, and requests a restart from the Nuclear Regulatory Commission (NRC). This 

comes 2 years before the planned 11-month reactor shutdown set to begin in calendar year 2023 to 

upgrade the cold neutron source from hydrogen to deuterium before switching from high enriched 

uranium (HEU) to low enriched uranium (LEU) fuel. 

Conclusion: The unplanned shutdown has greatly affected the U.S. neutron scattering community. 

The need for relicensing of the reactor in 2029 and current plan for HEU to LEU conversion in the 

same year will challenge NCNR (extensive work required for relicensing, increased but unknown cost 

of yet to be developed fuel) and increase the downtime for the U.S. scientific user community. 

RECOMMENDATION: To minimize impact to the user community, the National Institute for 

Standards and Technology (NIST) Center for Neutron Reasearch (NCNR) leadership should 

make sure that the scheduled downtime for the NCNR cold source upgrade does not coincide 

with the planned shutdown of the High-Flux Isotope Reactor (HFIR) at Oak Ridge National 

Laboratory for its high enriched uranium to low enriched uranium conversion and reactor 

vessel upgrade. NCNR staff should develop a formal plan for user access during the 2023 

shutdown as well as a formal plan for user access with the other U.S. neutron facilities. 

Finding: Massive amounts of data and metadata are being generated from new and upgraded 

instruments and from the combination of simultaneous characterization techniques on the same 

sample, overwhelming current data management systems. There is increasing demand for timestamped data, metadata, and data storage utilizing the principles of Findability, Accessibility, 

Interoperability, and Reuse of Digital Assets (FAIR). 

Conclusion: As a standards agency, there is an opportunity for NIST and NCNR to be leaders in 

community efforts to establish standards in data markup and data management utilizing FAIR 

principles at large data rates. 

RECOMMENDATION: The National Institute for Standards and Technology (NIST) Center 

for Neutron Research (NCNR) instrument staff should collaborate with and learn from NIST 
16 

staff outside NCNR who are working on data standards. They should resist the urge to develop 

their own software tools from scratch and ensure that they make use of community efforts in 

image reconstruction and analysis and maintain their good connection to the neutron and X-ray 

imaging community. 

THE REACTOR 

The NIST reactor, or formally the National Bureau of Standards Test Reactor (NBSR), is among the 

oldest operating large research reactors in the world, at more than 50 years of age.20 In addition, the 

current U.S. National Regulatory Commission (NRC) license will expire in 2029, and a new operating 

license application will be required. There are plans to change the nuclear fuel from high enriched 

uranium (HEU) to low enriched uranium (LEU). When operating an aging nuclear reactor, there are 

known issues that need to be addressed. NCNR has an Aging Reactor Management program to meet 

maintenance and regulatory requirements and to monitor long-term materials aging and radiation damage 

issues to ensure safe operations.21 Unfortunately, there are also unknown aging issues that can arise and 

can be very difficult to address. 

The design, construction, and licensing of a new research reactor will be lengthy and costly. When 

building a nuclear reactor, there is often an underestimation of the time and cost to prepare the 

engineering drawings needed to construct the nuclear reactor and the associated building. In addition, 

there are often insufficient technical details in the initial U.S. NRC license application to enable the U.S. 

NRC staff to evaluate the safety analysis that is required. The NBSR staff have given some consideration 

for a new reactor concept, but additional input is warranted from the research community to understand 

their needs, develop more detailed design concepts, and develop a more robust cost estimate. It is 

important to have a design that is optimized for LEU fuel and that allows for future modifications because 

the new reactor should operate for 50 years into the future. It is likely that it will take more than 10 years 

and close to a billion dollars to design and build a new research reactor at NIST. This includes developing 

a preliminary design, establishing a more detailed design for application for a construction permit from 

the NRC, developing the construction plans, construction of the new reactor and, finally, obtaining an 

operating license from the NRC. In consideration of the NCNR staff’s limited resources, the new 

optimized reactor design may be more important than the swap-in upgrade of LEU fuel in the aging 

reactor. 

The importance of a safe, reliable nuclear reactor to support NIST’s R&D program cannot be 

underestimated. Without a reliable supply of neutrons, NIST cannot fulfill its unique basic and applied 

research programs. 

Key Finding: The NCNR reactor (known as the National Bureau of Standards Reactor, or NBSR) is 

among the oldest operating large research reactors in the world, at more than 50 years of age. The 

current U.S. Nuclear Regulatory Commision (NRC) license will expire in 2029, and a new operating 

license application will be required. There are plans to change the nuclear fuel from high enriched 

uranium (HEU) to low enriched uranium (LEU). When operating an aging nuclear reactor, there are 

known issues that need to be addressed. Unfortunately, there are also unknown aging issues that can 

arise and can be very difficult to address. The design, construction, and licensing of a new research 

reactor will be lengthy and costly, on the order of 10 years and a billion dollars. 

20 The reactor first went critical in 1967 while under a provisional facility operating license and began full 

power operation in 1969. On May 21, 1970, the Atomic Energy Commission issued Facility Operating License TR5. A 1984 license renewal authorized the NBSR to operate at an increased power level of 20 megawatts. 21 R. Dimeo, NIST, 2021, “NCNR Lab Plan,” presentation to the Panel on Assessment of the Center for 

Neutron Research, July 21. 
17 

Key Finding: The National Bureau of Standards Reactor (NBSR) staff has given some consideration 

to a new reactor concept and a study has been commissioned on the economic impacts of reactorbased neutron scattering. The planning process for a new reactor has begun but is moving slowly 

without new funding for a science case and for design of a new reactor tailored for cold neutron 

instruments and using LEU fuel. A long shutdown of NCNR would have a major impact on both the 

U.S. fundamental research effort as well as U.S. industrial competitiveness. 

Key Conclusion: Additional input is warranted from the research community to understand its needs, 

more detailed design concepts for a new reactor, and a more robust cost estimate for the new reactor. 

It is important to have a design that is optimized for LEU fuel and that allows for future modifications 

because the new reactor should operate for 50 years. The opportunity here is to rethink the needs for 

science with neutrons 50 years out for both industry and the U.S. scientific community and to provide 

that case to Congress in order to obtain the funding for a new reactor able to meet those needs. 

KEY RECOMMENDATION: The Director of National Institute of Standards and Technology 

(NIST) Center for Neutron Research (NCNR) should take a leadership role and own this 

mission with full support of NIST. The Director of NCNR should commission a study to define 

what the research community and industry needs for the next 50 years in addition to the 

economic study already commissioned. In parallel and starting as soon as possible, the Director 

of NIST and the Director of NCNR should be proactive with the Visiting Committee on 

Advanced Technology, the User Group Executive Committee, the local community, the U.S. 

Nuclear Regulatory Commission (NRC), and the appropriate congressional committees to 

ensure support and to build the case for constructing a new research reactor. 
18 

3 

Adequacy of Instrumentation 

The National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST) Center for Neutron Research (NCNR) 

hosts a suite of 30 neutron beam instruments, of which 17 are neutron scattering instruments operated by 

NCNR; 11 are imaging, analytical chemistry, and neutron physics instruments operated by the NIST 

Physical and Materials Measurement Laboratories (MML); and 1 is a test station.1

 The nSoft Small-Angle 

Neutron Scattering (SANS) instrument is operated collaboratively by MML and NCNR. 

The team at NCNR has continued to upgrade and enhance the instrument suite in a rolling program, 

building on their strengths and ensuring that they remain on, or close to, the cutting edge of neutron 

scattering instrumentation. The work is leveraged with additional funding from National Science 

Foundation (NSF) and NIST programs, and NCNR has been successful in being responsive to such 

opportunities. It is essential for continued success at NCNR that this program of upgrades and 

enhancements is supported as a core part of facility operations to meet their mission to the user 

community. 

The comparison of the performance of the instruments against existing and known future facilities 

took into account uniqueness, key technical parameters, scientific capability, and quality of measured 

data. 

As an example, the Chromatic Analysis Neutron Diffractometer or Reflector (CANDoR) is a unique 

instrument in a technical sense that brings scientific capabilities for time-resolved reflectometry over a 

wide Q range that are beyond what is available elsewhere. The data quality, in terms of both signal to 

noise and the absolute background level are also world leading. Such measurements are traditionally seen 

as the domain of time-of-flight instruments, but here the team has brought the benefits of a continuous 

source to bear and produced a world-leading instrument. In comparison, the two reflectometers planned at 

the European Spallation Source (ESS) will eventually provide for a wider simultaneous Q range, but will 

struggle to match the signal-to-noise and low absolute background seen on CANDoR, and furthermore 

are currently at least 5 years from reliable user operations. The instrumentation proposed for the 

Spallation Neutron Source (SNS) second target station is even further in the future, but will again struggle 

to match the low background obtainable at a reactor source. 

A second example is provided by the Multi-Axis Crystal Spectrometer (MACS-II), which is world 

class for a neutron spectrometer in terms of monochromatic cold-neutron flux and energy resolution, and 

which, combined with the very large solid-angle of its detector and a very low neutron background, gives 

it world-class capability when compared with counterparts at the Institut Laue-Langevin (ILL) and SNS 

to map out weak, diffuse excitations characteristic of the quantum and/or frustrated magnetic systems that 

are of greatest interest now and for the foreseeable future. Performance has been enhanced further to 

provide unique capabilities in studying dynamic systems through the provision of event capability that 

may be combined with synchronization of external probes or fields applied to the sample. Instruments 

planned for ESS to provide similar scientific capability will not be distinctly more highly performing in 

their early years and are unlikely to be available until 2028 at the earliest. The planned spectrometers at 

1

 The current instruments are shown in Appendix A. 
19 

the SNS second target station should be world leading in this area, but are currently at least a decade away 

from operation. 

The NCNR has some unique and world-leading instruments that can deliver significant scientific 

impact. The timelines of new sources suggest that with appropriate levels of continued investment—for 

example, completion of the detector coverage on CANDoR and the build-out of the Polarized Large 

Angle Resolution Spectrometer (PoLAR)—and investment in staff to provide support for users wanting to 

do challenging experiments as with MACS, NCNR can readily maintain a world-leading role in neutron 

scattering instrumentation for the next decade. It is also important to note that new sources do not reduce 

the performance of existing instruments elsewhere! 

NEUTRON SPIN-ECHO SPECTROMETER 

Accomplishments 

The NCNR team, working with partners at the University of Delaware, have successfully attracted 

funding through the National Science Foundation (NSF) Mid-Scale Research Instrumentation (MSRI) 

program to upgrade the Neutron Spin-Echo Spectrometer (NSE). This upgrade will significantly extend 

the accessible Fourier times on the instrument, modernize the controls and operations, and provide for 

training of a new instrument scientist. The plan to work with Forschungzentrum Jülich, a partnership that 

delivered the current NSE instrument, to deliver this new instrument is a prudent one. The team at the 

Jülich Centre for Neutron Science is a world leader in constructing this type of instrument, and the new 

NCNR instrument will take advantage of all of the recent advances that have been made in NSE design in 

order to extract maximum performance from the National Bureau of Standards Reactor (NBSR) neutron 

flux. 

A strong link to the Small-Angle Neutron Scattering (SANS) instrument team has been developed, 

and access to SANS measurements is made available to NSE users. This is a key part of the increasing 

productivity of the NSE program, as it allows measurement of the static structure in order to support the 

dynamics measurements. 

Challenges and Opportunities 

The new instrument, combined with the new cold source, will deliver a significant step in 

performance over the current NSE, which has a successful and growing scientific impact. However, there 

will still be limitations owing to lower flux compared to reactor-based instruments elsewhere, but a focus 

on the bioscience areas where the team are world leading will ensure that the upgrade delivers 

scientifically. 

The new instrument presents an opportunity to extend the user base beyond the current users and 

collaborations. This will involve the challenge of further community building beyond the currently 

supportable base. The gains in throughput and accessible Fourier time will open the potential for lower 

sample concentrations and new biological systems for study. 

CANDOR 

The CANDoR instrument is a multiplexed, “white-beam” neutron reflectometer that makes use of 

banks of graphite monochromators, closely coupled with detectors, to measure reflectivity curves at 

multiple wavelengths simultaneously. The design, construction, and commissioning of this complex 

instrument is impressive and to be commended. It has taken a significant, coordinated effort from across 

the facility to execute this project. 
20 

Accomplishments 

The instrument has now been commissioned and entered the user program in 2020. Despite the 

restrictions owing to the COVID pandemic, the team successfully executed several user proposals and is 

expecting these results to start to appear in papers soon. The early results are particularly notable in the 

low background achieved and thus the extension in Q range possible. The team has also demonstrated a 

noticeably improved signal to noise ratio. 

Despite the delayed development and commissioning, which allowed some design changes to 

enhance performance over the original baseline, the instrument performance has now been demonstrated 

and represents a significant advance on the state of the art. 

Challenges and Opportunities 

CANDoR has the capability, when fully fitted out with the complete detector bank, to be a 

transformative instrument for neutron reflectometry. This opportunity can be realized only by executing a 

fully resourced plan for finalization of the instrument construction. Completion of the instrument with 

installation of the remaining detector banks should be prioritized after the 2023 outage. 

The capabilities of CANDoR present challenges in data processing and analysis, with the increased 

rate and complexity of measurements calling for the development of software tools that will empower 

users of the instrument. The reflectometry team has been very successful, with a strongly collaborative 

approach thus far. This model has the instrument scientists doing the bulk of data processing and analysis 

for the users, but this will not be sustainable on CANDoR without investment in staff and software. The 

expertise in reflectometry software exists at NCNR and should be supported and expanded. 

While the most obvious benefit of the CANDoR instrument is the ability to make more measurements 

in the same amount of time, the opportunity should be taken to expand into new science areas that take 

advantage of the capabilities beyond increased throughput. Large parametric studies, building a library of 

biomolecular structures at interfaces (as proposed by Dr. Frank Heinrich),2

 and examining interfacial 

kinetics are all possible areas of interest. In terms of kinetics, if the reflectometry team can take full 

advantage of the opportunity presented by the Center for High Resolution Neutron Scattering (CHRNS) 

project on time-resolved measurements, CANDoR is well positioned to deliver a strong return on 

investment in this area. 

VSANS 

Accomplishments 

The Very Small Angle Neutron Scattering (vSANS) instrument has now been commissioned and has 

started operations. The user program was unfortunately interrupted by the pandemic and unplanned 

outage, but the team has worked well to ensure that experiments were still performed and that users 

obtained data. 

Challenges and Opportunities 

The closures of the Orphee reactor at the Laboratoire Leon Brillouin (Saclay, France), and the BER II 

reactor at the Helmholtz Zentrum Berlin (Berlin, Germany) have left the NCNR vSANS as a unique 

2

 F. Heinrich, Carnegie Mellon University, 2021, “The Structure of Membrane-Associated Proteins,” 

presentation to the Panel on Assessment of the Center for Neutron Research, July 21. 
21 

instrument worldwide. There remain challenges with the high-resolution detector and the slit collimation 

system, which have been exacerbated by the unplanned outage. The vSANS capabilities are much sought 

after in the user community and represent an opportunity to enable experiments that cannot be performed 

elsewhere. 

BT-8/DARTS UPGRADE 

Accomplishments 

The engineering diffractometer has been significantly upgraded, with a new detector, a new multilayer monochromator, new sample strain equipment, and a new sample positioning assembly. These 

upgrades combined provide the potential for a 20× gain in count rate for cubic systems and represent a 

significant advance for this instrument. 

Challenges and Opportunities

The instrument is currently operated successfully in a collaborative mode by one instrument scientist, 

but the increased performance presents a challenge to this model. The potential for increased throughput 

presents possible challenges in data quantity, and additional scientific staff will be needed if the 

opportunities presented by these performance gains are to be fully realized. If additional funding could be 

secured, there is the opportunity to expand the engineering diffraction program and impact, as the 

industrial connection is very strong for this technique. The team should consider developing and 

strengthening its connections to university-based engineering research groups with links to industry as a 

mechanism for increased usage, and potentially as a mechanism for support for additional staffing. 

NEUTRON INTERFEROMETRIC MICROSCOPY—FAR FIELD IMAGING 

Accomplishments 

The imaging team from the Physical Measurement Laboratory (PML) has collaborated with the 

SANS team from NCNR and successfully obtained internal NIST Innovations in Measurement Science 

(IMS) funding to develop its concept for far field imaging. Proof of concept measurements have been 

made, and there is a good collaboration under way with the Materials Measurement Laboratory (MML) 

on production of microchannel phase gratings. 

Challenges and Opportunities 

This technique, when used for materials characterization, will generate larger data volumes than the 

team has been used to dealing with; this challenge needs to be addressed through investment in automated 

data processing and integrated data analysis if the opportunities of this technique are to be realized. Even 

with these larger data volumes, there will still be significantly less data than obtained at synchrotron 

tomography beamlines and there is an opportunity to learn from the X-ray community and the software 

tools they employ. The team should resist the urge to develop its own software tools from scratch and 

ensure that it makes use of community efforts in image reconstruction and analysis and maintains its good 

connection to the neutron and X-ray imaging community. 
22 

If the development project is successful, it will provide a unique materials characterization facility 

when deployed on the NG-7/SANS instrument and open new experimental opportunities for the NCNR 

user community. 

SPINS REPLACEMENT—POLAR 

Accomplishments 

The NCNR team has collaborated with the University of California, Santa Barbara, to develop a 

proposal for a Continuous Angle Multiple Energy Analysis (CAMEA)-type secondary spectrometer for 

the Spin Polarized Inelastic Neutron Spectrometer (SPINS) replacement. This proposal has successfully 

moved to the second round in the NSF Mid-Scale Research Instrumentation Program (MSRI). 

Challenges and Opportunities 

The PoLAR proposal would deliver a high-performance cold triple-axis instrument for NCNR that 

would be competitive with instruments at other facilities and provide a unique tool for U.S. neutron users. 

There is an opportunity for the team to work with the Paul Scherrer Institute in Switzerland (RITA2/CAMEA) and European Spallation Source (ESS/BIFROST3

) teams on development of the instrument to 

minimize effort at NCNR. The new instrument will present challenges in data processing and analysis, 

but there is again an opportunity to learn from similar instruments elsewhere. 

D2 COLD SOURCE 

The D2 cold source project will replace liquid hydrogen with liquid deuterium as a moderator to 

produce cold neutrons. It will help to compensate for the reduced neutron flux when the reactor is 

converted from high enriched uranium (HEU) to low enriched uranium (LEU). 

Accomplishments 

The D2 cold source project is currently on track and well managed. 

Challenges and Opportunities 

The project is currently reported to be on schedule, but with some key procurements needing to be 

executed this year. There needs to be very close monitoring to ensure that the installation can be executed 

within the planned outage. 

The outage presents challenges for the user program, particularly with the unplanned outage limiting 

access in 2021. The NCNR has been successful in working with other facilities to obtain time for U.S. 

users during the pandemic and unplanned outage, and these collaborations provide an opportunity to 

make a more formal plan for user access during the 2023 shutdown. 

The opportunity to have enhanced long-wavelength flux for the cold neutron instruments is notable, 

and with the conversion to LEU now scheduled to occur in 2029 at the earliest, there will be a significant 

period of operations where the user community will benefit from this flux enhancement. 

3

 BIFROST is the name of a high-flux extreme environment spectrometer. 
23 

NG-5, NG-6, AND NG-7 GUIDE REPLACEMENTS 

Accomplishments 

The Neutron Guide (NG) design for replacement of NG-5, NG-6, and NG-7 has been optimized for 

the instruments currently installed or planned in the future, making use of modern supermirror optics to 

enhance flux at all instruments using the guides. 

Challenges and Opportunities 

There will be challenges with the procurement and installation timing for the optics, but careful 

project management should be able to mitigate this risk. The loss of the free-liquids reflectometer on NG7 could lead to reduced capabilities at NCNR, but this could present an opportunity to further play to the 

strengths of the reflectometry team in bio-membranes and magnetism. 

TIME-RESOLVED DATA ACQUISITION 

Accomplishments 

The NCNR team has implemented time stamping of the neutron data (event mode data acquisition) on 

the Multi-Axis Crystal Spectrometer (MACS), and tour de force experiments by the Broholm group have 

demonstrated the scientific value of these types of experiments for NCNR and provided a technical testbed for further development. The integration of this complex sample environment equipment with the 

data acquisition system is a strong example of the focus of NCNR on doing what is needed to deliver the 

highest quality science from the facility. 

Challenges and Opportunities 

The NSF-CHRNS project to deliver time-stamped, and hence time-resolved, data acquisition across 

the neutron scattering instrument suite presents a significant opportunity for new experiments and new 

science. The use of time-stamped data recording at a continuous source represents technical challenges in 

 The design and deployment of a new timing network to put all equipment on the same clock; 

 The integration of detector systems and data acquisition systems with the new timing system; and 

 Efficient data storage and data processing. 

The team at NCNR should be sure to take advantage of advances in these methods at other reactors—

for example, at the Australian Nuclear Science and Technology Organisation (ANSTO) and the Institut 

Laue-Langevin (ILL)—as well as building on their own experience of operating the SANS instruments in 

event mode, the work done on time-involved small-angle experiments (TISANEs), and the knowledge 

gained from the MACS experiments. The flexibility designed into the instrument control and data 

acquisition system in accordance with the National Initiative for Cybersecurity Education (NICE) will 

benefit these efforts. 

When deploying the new systems, care needs to be taken to ensure that implementation of these 

advanced measurement methods does not compromise the existing capabilities that users depend on. 
24 

Finding: There is a critical need for the United States to develop a compelling future vision for 

powerful neutron facilities, including reactors to maintain competitiveness with Europe and Asia with 

better resourced and staffed facilities. 

Conclusion: The prolonged shutdown of the NCNR reactor, newer facilities, and better staffing 

abroad may cause leading-edge scientists, both instrument scientists and users, to move to work and 

do their research at the best facilities, not in the United States. 

Finding: Remote use of the instruments by outside users is hampered by NIST firewalls. After the 

restart of operations during COVID-19, only on-site staff and users could perform experiments, with 

samples sent to NCNR. This requires more staff to perform the “remote” experiments. Automation of 

sample environments and experiments are beginning to be realized. 

Conclusion: The future staffing needs and systems that allow automation for instruments will 

increase owing to the likely increase in users wanting to conduct remote experiments. This is 

especially the case for serving the needs of industry, which is important for enabling NIST’s mission. 

RECOMMENDATION: The National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST) Center 

for Neutron Research (NCNR) leadership and staff should continue to work on enhancements 

to systems and/or staffing to serve remote users and to increase automation to better serve the 

user community into the future. The team should consider developing and strengthening its 

connections to university-based engineering research groups with links to industry as a 

mechanism for increased usage of the engineering diffractometer, and potentially as a 

mechanism for support for additional staffing. 

Finding: NCNR has been successful at recruiting and retaining high-quality staff, and this is one of 

the key factors in the good productivity and outsized scientific impact. There is a very successful 

postdoctoral program that is quite diverse and results in a relatively high number of placements into 

academic positions at the end of the postdoctorate. 

Key Conclusion: Excellent in-house staff attracts and enables effective partnerships with excellent 

external groups and is essential to world-class scientific output. It is critical to continue to maintain a 

pipeline of such staff (e.g., through Ph.D. and postdoctoral programs) with a broad portfolio of 

instrumentation capacity and capability. 

Key Finding: The long-term impact of 7 years of flat budgets has caused a reduction of NCNR 

instrument staff by 20 percent, to a level significantly below international standards. 

Key Conclusion: The reduction of instrument staff, already low by international standards, is 

reducing capabilities essential for a world-class user facility and reducing NCNR’s ability to develop 

and continuously upgrade cutting-edge instruments, necessary for a very old reactor to increase 

scientific productivity. Improvements in efficiency and technology developments have reached their 

limits of maximizing the efforts of the current staff over the past 7 years of flat budgets. If this 

continues, it is likely to even more greatly impact staff morale and the scientific productivity of the 

facility. More staff is needed in hardware and especially software to realize the potential of timeresolved studies. 

KEY RECOMMENDATION: The National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST) 

Center for Neutron Research (NCNR) leadership should work with NIST leadership to ensure 

the support of NCNR at the level of staffing it needs to continue to develop upgrades and 

enhancements to instruments to ensure a world-class user facility. 
25 

Finding: NCNR hosts a suite of 30 neutron beam instruments, of which 17 are neutron scattering 

instruments operated by NCNR and 13 are imaging, analytical chemistry, and neutron physics 

instruments operated by the NIST Physical Measurement and Materials Measurement Laboratories. 

Finding: The staff and users at NCNR have continued to upgrade and enhance the instrument suite in 

a rolling program, building on their strengths and ensuring that they remain on, or close to, the cutting 

edge of neutron scattering instrumentation. The work is leveraged with additional funding from NSF 

and NIST programs, and NCNR has been successful in being responsive to such opportunities. 

Key Conclusion: The upgrades and continual enhancements to instruments are owing to the 

outstanding quality of NCNR staff, with time to perform its own research and to collaborate on 

science with external users. It is essential for continued success at NCNR that the instrument staff can 

continue to perform its own research, thus attracting and retaining the best staff and users, and that 

this program of upgrades and enhancements is supported as a core part of facility operations to meet 

its mission to the user community. 

Finding: The D2 cold source project is currently on track and well managed. 

Conclusion: The opportunity to have enhanced long-wavelength flux for the cold neutron instruments 

is notable, and with the conversion to LEU now scheduled to occur in 2029 at the earliest, there will 

be a significant period of operations where the user community will benefit from this flux 

enhancement. 

Finding: Several instruments at NCNR are unique in the world or will be world class with continuing 

development, allowing research that can be done nowhere else. These are (1) the Chromatic Analysis 

Neutron Diffractometer or Reflector (CANDoR) instrument, a multiplexed, “white-beam” neutron 

reflectometer that makes use of banks of graphite monochromators, closely coupled with detectors, to 

measure reflectivity curves at multiple wavelengths simultaneously; (2) the Very Small Angle 

Neutron Scattering (vSANS) instrument; (3) the Neutron Interferometric Microscopy-Far Field 

Imaging system conceptual design; and (4) the new capability of time-resolved data acquisition at the 

Multi-Axis Crystal Spectrometer (MACS) enabled by sophisticated complex sample environments. 

Key Finding: Upgrades or planned upgrades to several instruments will bring them to par or nearly 

to par with global counterparts. These are the Neutron Spin Echo Spectrometer (NSE) upgrade and 

the Polarized Large Angle Resolution Spectrometer (PoLAR) secondary continuous-angle multiple 

energy analysis spectrometer for the Spin Polarized Inelastic Neutron Spectrometer (SPINS) 

replacement. 

Finding: Planned upgrades to the BT-8 engineering diffractometer and planned replacement of the 

NG-5, NG-6, and NG-7 beam guides using supermirror optics will represent significant advances. 
26 

4 

Technical Adequacy 

CONDENSED MATTER PHYSICS: SOFT MATTER, BIOLOGY, AND BIOPHYSICS 

The National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST) Center for Neutron Research (NCNR) 

instruments available for characterizing soft matter include structural measurements with Small-Angle 

Neutron Scattering (SANS) and reflectometry: Ultra Small Angle Neutron Scattering (uSANS); Very 

Small Angle Neutron Scattering (vSANS); two 30-meter SANS; Multi-Angle Grazing Incidence KVector (MAGIK) reflectometer; Polarized Beam Reflectometer (PBR); horizontal reflectometer (to be 

sunset); the new Chromatic Analysis Neutron Diffractometer or Reflectometer (CANDoR); and 

spectrometers to resolve short-time dynamics—Neutron Spin Echo Spectrometer (NSE) and High-Flux 

Backscattering Spectrometer (HFBS). This comprehensive suite of instruments enables soft matter 

researchers to address problems across multiple time and length scales, where the use of neutrons is 

necessary and critical. The portfolio of research, especially in complex and self-assembling systems, is 

impressive and competitive against other neutron scattering facilities across the world. The flexibility of 

vSANS, including large q-range and integration with a variety of sample environments, is a workhorse for 

high-impact science. Once fully outfitted with detectors, CANDoR will be a best-in-world reflectometer 

with unprecedented capabilities for a reactor neutron source and distinct advantages over spallation 

sources that will enable NCNR to carry out new and innovative science, especially in the time-resolved 

domain. Another significant improvement is the upgrade to NSE funded by a National Science 

Foundation (NSF)-Mid-Scale Research Infrastructure Program (MSRI) led by the Center for Neutron 

Science at the University of Delaware. The enhanced flux afforded by the liquid deuterium (LD2) 

moderator will be a further enhancement across this suite of spectrometers. The partnership with NSF to 

operate the Center for High Resolution Neutron Scattering (CHRNS), which supports the operation of 

vSANS, CANDoR, HFBS, and NSE spectrometers, continues to be a crucial component for continued 

access for users and leadership in soft matter research. 

Accomplishments 

NCNR continues to maintain a high-quality research portfolio in soft matter and is poised to continue 

its world-leading program in self-assembling systems. The scientific staff at NCNR responsible for the 

vSANS and CANDoR spectrometers are crucial for maintaining leadership and accessibility of neutrons 

for users. CANDoR was a risky endeavor originally but has been fully demonstrated. Its performance and 

low background will be a game changer in reactor-based reflectivity instruments once fully outfitted with 

detectors. The NCNR staff is commended for working through the challenges to realize this instrument. 

Completing this spectrometer should be a high priority. 
27 

NCNR continues to be a leader in the area of membrane biology and biophysics, including NSE 

measurements of membrane dynamics.1

 The NSE spectrometer upgrade is a welcome and necessary 

improvement and will enable an improved program for U.S. researchers. However, NSE capabilities are 

surpassed by high-flux reactors available outside the United States, and so a continued focus on the 

scientific leadership in membrane dynamics will be key to making the most of the new instrument. The 

MAGIK reflectometer has a well-established and recognized program in measuring protein, small 

molecule, polymer interactions with supported membranes with a very high productivity/publication rate. 

The integration of steered molecular dynamics (MD) for analysis is important for extracting the greatest 

amount of information from data collected in this research area.2

 Given that more than 60 percent of all 

FDA-approved small molecule drugs target membrane proteins, however, their structural characterization 

is particularly challenging with standard techniques. Further development of neutron reflectometry 

methods on supported membranes, along with the integration of MD simulations, is likely to aid in the 

development of small molecule drugs to inhibit this challenging class of drug targets. The nSoft industrial 

consortia with NCNR has demonstrated longevity and benefits not only to industry sponsors but also to 

the wider soft matter user community through developments in automated sample formulations and 

capillary-rheo SANS. 

The quality of instruments and staff expertise is ushering in a new focus on time-resolved 

measurements. Absolute time stamp data acquisition is a significant advancement for reactor sources. 

Similar efforts directed toward analysis of neutron scattering data in the context of other complementary 

techniques, MD simulations to extract the most information possible on scientifically important topics, 

and use of artificial intelligence (AI), machine learning (ML), and automation will yield impactful results, 

and fast-tracking these efforts given the reactor shutdown was an efficient reallocation of staff time and 

effort. Likewise, NIST and NCNR are the appropriate place for implementing the Findability, 

Accessibility, Interoperability, and Reuse of Digital Assets (FAIR) data effort under CHRNS. These 

comprehensive efforts spanning data acquisition and analysis are going to have real impact on the soft 

matter and biological program. A lot of important soft matter dynamics occurs at the millisecond time 

scale and will be accessible by vSANS and CANDoR’s improved time resolution.3

The NCNR staff’s sustained efforts toward attracting new users for neutron scattering to address 

important questions not answerable from other techniques is applauded. The work in collaboration with J. 

Robertson4

 investigating the role of lipid structure in membrane transporter dimerization is a great 

demonstration of how outreach by NCNR staff can grow the community. However, such activities are 

time consuming for staff in terms of developing the relationship, science question, and ultimately design 

of experiment and analysis. Ensuring sufficient staffing levels to support the user community and 

scientific enterprise is a critical need. 

Improvements in SASSIE and SASView (names of software for analyzing data) are enabling users to 

better analyze their data in the long term but can be a drain on staff in the short term. The coordinated 

effort across facilities around the world is to be applauded, and NCNR leadership in SANS analysis and 

SASSIE was part of initiating these loose consortia. Integrating time-resolved studies and analysis will be 

another significant challenge and would benefit from broadening the collaborative team to include outside 

users and the soft matter community across both SANS and reflectivity. Reflectivity analysis in particular 

demands user-friendly software to enable nonexpert data analysis and interpretation. 

1

 E. Kelley, NIST, 2021, “Measuring Lipid Membrane Dynamics on the Mesoscale with NSE,” presentation to 

the Panel on Assessment of the Center for Neutron Research, July 21. 2

 F. Heinrich, NIST, 2021, “The Structure of Membrane-Associated Proteins,” presentation to the Panel on 

Assessment of the Center for Neutron Research, July 21. 3

 A. Grutter, NIST, 2021, “CANDOR: A Polychromatic Next-Generation Reflectometer,” presentation to the 

Panel on Assessment of the Center for Neutron Research, July 21. 4

 J. Robertson, Washington University, 2021, “Membrane Transporter Dimerization Driven by Differential 

Lipid Solvation Energetics,” presentation to the Panel on Assessment of the Center for Neutron Research, July 21. 
28 

Last, a number of the presentations demonstrated the importance of (1) NCNR’s talented 

postdoctorates contributing to and working with NCNR staff to push new research areas and advances; 

(2) the leveraging of tight collaborations with the University of Delaware and the Center for Neutron 

Science for sustained scientific productivity; and (3) the importance of the suite of instruments spanning 

SANS to NSE to tackle new research areas. 

Challenges and Opportunities 

As CANDoR becomes fully outfitted, it will surpass the capacity of MAGIK and PBR by a factor of 

about 5. Optimization of staff to fully support CANDoR and find additional partners for operating 

MAGIK and PBR may be possible with long-term or high-risk research programs. This is an opportunity 

and a challenge for NCNR to manage these instruments efficiently with limited resources. 

NSE will be much improved. Operation of the spectrometer will be new, and obtaining knowledge 

transfer from Jülich will be important for rapidly integrating the new instrument into the user program. 

Broadening the user program across the soft matter domain is an opportunity to drive new and innovative 

science but requires significant staff effort and time. 

Fully realized time-resolved studies will have an enormous impact on the science questions that 

NCNR can address. This opportunity will bring with it the challenge of developing the user program and 

software tools (including real-time visualization and post data analysis) to bring these techniques to the 

broadest possible user community in soft matter, biology, and biophysics. Many of the most pressing and 

impactful science questions to be addressed are by new users to neutron scattering. Reaching these 

potential users will require sustained outreach by NCNR staff and support to design and execute 

experiments and analyze the data. 

HARD CONDENSED MATTER 

Research conducted at or enabled by facilities at NCNR in the field of hard condensed matter are 

centered on fundamental and applied magnetism and the intertwined subjects of superconductivity and 

multiferroic materials. Understanding the physics of such materials is at the heart of solutions to 

sustainable energy, national security, advanced transportation and more. Leadership in the understanding 

and exploitation of advanced materials such as these has significant economic benefits through the 

nucleation of high-tech manufacturing and development of advanced devices. In particular, advanced 

magnetic materials are used extensively for data storage, in the area of health in a range of applications 

where they are attached to or implanted into the body, in home entertainment tech, and in advanced 

electricity generation and next-generation electric vehicles. Superconductors and magnets are both used in 

medical imaging devices. The promise of quantum computing is heavily dependent on understanding and 

developing quantum materials. Multiferroics are used as actuators in industrial and military applications 

with potential applications in next-generation information storage technologies. The structures of such 

systems are probed primarily by neutron diffraction on the powder diffractometer BT-1 and the triple-axis 

spectrometer BT-7, with larger-scale structures explored by SANS and reflectometry. Excitations may be 

explored through a suite of thermal and cold-neutron spectrometers, of which the Disc Chopper 

Spectrometer (DCS, NG-4) and, increasingly, the newer Multi-Axis Crystal Spectrometer (MACS, BT-9) 

strongly feature in the highest-profile publications, arguably because some of the most challenging 

current problems in magnetism involve quantum disorder, which is often characterized by continua of 

scattering over momentum space Q and energy that requires mapping over both parameters, a strength of 

MACS. The instrument suite is complemented by extensive sample environment equipment with expert 

technical support to enable systems to be studied over a wide range of temperature and magnetic field. 
29 

Accomplishments 

The scientific impact of NCNR in hard condensed matter is world class, with a steady flow of very 

high impact publications. Several recent highlights involve topological spin excitations, such as work on 

excitations in the layered honeycomb ferromagnet CrI3 and on the kagome metal YMn6Sn6—the magnetic 

structure of the two systems was determined by diffraction measurements at BT-1 and BT-7, respectively. 

Neither of these instruments is technically world class, but they are nevertheless critical for establishing 

or confirming the magnetic structure of materials and the basis for exploring their excitations. NCNR 

does however enjoy technical poll-position in MACS, which is world leading in its class of instrument in 

terms of monochromatic cold-neutron flux. In recent years, MACS has been equipped with highly 

efficient wide-angle polarization analysis through a 3He cell, and most recently still, offers event-mode 

measurements that open up wholly new vistas for dynamic measurements, in terms of both time scale and 

synchronization with external probes or fields applied to the sample. For example, measurements on the 

highly frustrated spin-ice pyrochlore Ho2Ti2O7 in a pulsed magnetic field allowed stroboscopic neutron 

scattering studies of the magnetic fluctuations out to very long (> 0.1 ms) time scales that untangled 

contributions from dipolar and unique, low-temperature monopolar relaxation processes. A key feature of 

this work was close collaboration between in-house staff and a user group to develop and integrate the 

sample environment with the instrument to provide the pulsed field synchronized with data collection. A 

bespoke sample environment also allowed spectroscopy to be performed on MACS during microwave 

irradiation, which allowed excited states in a Cr8 single molecule magnet (SMM) to be selectively 

populated and studied, providing proof of principle for a much wider range of studies of SMMs. 

The panel also notes continuing work to unravel the origins of unconventional superconductivity in 

the Ferromagnetic Spin-Triplet system UTe2, and in particular the interplay with magnetism, which has 

led to very high profile publications. While neutron scattering facilities at NIST have not yet been 

deployed in this work, NCNR scientists have played prominent roles, which is characteristic here. The 

strength of the condensed matter physics (CMP) program is as much owing to the strength of the in-house 

scientists and the collaborations they bring as to the instrumentation. 

Last, the panel notes the impact of the ongoing drive to improve user services and in particular 

improvements to cryogenics to speed up cooling times and to reduce consumption of helium, an 

increasingly expensive and rare resource. 

Challenges and Opportunities 

MACS and the science it enables is stellar and is likely to deliver world-leading science for years to 

come, especially with the developments such as time stamping neutron arrival at the detectors and timedependent fields (e.g., magnetic pulses) at the sample, and underpinned by excellent in-house science and 

technical support. This will be particularly important in exploiting the potential for time-dependent 

studies with unprecedented sensitivity (to low cross-section processes) or unrivalled dynamic range (time 

scales), where integration of external probes with the counting software will be essential. 

Instruments BT-1 and BT-7 are no longer technically world class but nevertheless will continue to 

play a critical role in essential characterization of magnetic and superconducting systems—and indeed for 

a much wider range of scientific areas—that is also very hard to access elsewhere. It would have a huge 

negative impact on the CMP program if these were not at least maintained. 

The importance of topological and other nano- to mesostructured materials is likely to continue to 

grow and will benefit from increased access to SANS instruments and other means of measuring and 

interpreting data from large-scale structures. 

X-ray methods have been developing very quickly in the past decade and have made very significant 

inroads into areas that were traditionally the preserve of neutron scattering. This includes inelastic 

methods such as Resonant Inelastic X-Ray Scattering (RIXS), where excitations approaching 10 meV 

may be resolved, and samples may be much smaller—for example, atom-thick layers or films, of great 
30 

interest in topological systems. However, it is likely to be some time before excitations close to and below 

1 meV in energy may be resolved. Furthermore, the calculation or interpretation of scattering cross 

sections is far more straightforward for neutrons, and the control and precise and accurate measurement of 

the temperature of samples in the ultra-low regions is still crucial to understanding key phenomena in this 

field and is also far more satisfactory for neutrons compared to X rays. 

Last, the critical dependence of the success of NCNR in this field on excellent staff requires a 

sustained, long-term campaign to attract or train the next generation, noting that there is greater 

competition than ever before for such people to go into other types of facilities (e.g., synchrotrons) or 

areas of science. The Ph.D. programs and postdoctoral research posts are essential for the long-term 

survival and effectiveness of this highly valuable national resource for this field. 

Finding: The hard condensed matter program is producing world-class science. World-leading 

spectrometer MACS-II offers unique experimental capability (e.g., event mode measurements 

accessing unique time scales) that is already delivering stellar science with the promise of much more 

to come. 

Finding: Instruments such as BT-1 and BT-7 are workhorses but are also essential to the delivery of 

very high quality science. There will be a negative impact if these capabilities are lost. 

Finding: Excellent in-house staff attracts and enables effective partnerships with excellent external 

groups and is essential to world-class scientific output. It is critical to maintain a pipeline of such staff 

(e.g., through Ph.D. programs) and a broad portfolio of instrumentation capacity and capability. 

CHEMICAL PHYSICS 

Introduction 

It is clear to the panel that the staff of NCNR is fully committed to supporting users. Positive 

comments on user experiences are plentiful and similar to these: 

As a “major research facility service” to support independent researchers working at the cutting edge, 

NCNR is without equal in terms of customized support through integrated teamwork by beam scientists 

with associated support personnel focused on the needs of each individual user, whom they get to know. 

The user office is outstanding and VERY helpful, we would have lost several beam days every cycle 

without their help and support.5

On the scientific side, the Chemical Physics team is highly productive. During 2019–2020, the team 

published several papers that are already highly cited (see Appendix D), in spite of their recent 

publication. The Chemical Physics team published a total of 79 papers during the 2019–2020 time frame, 

which have garnered a total of 1,362 citations, or approximately 17 citations per publication, an excellent 

record for very new papers. The whole of NCNR published a total of 530 papers; thus, Chemical Physics 

contributed approximately 15 percent of the productivity at NCNR. 

Topics range from hydrogen storage and gas separation materials, metal-organic frameworks, 

hydrogen evolution materials, and alloy catalysts. Thus, the research is related to energy technologies, 

including new materials for electrodes or electrolyte in next-generation batteries, and photovoltaics, to 

optoelectronic technologies, and to separation science and catalytic systems, all of which are 

5

 R. Dimeo, NIST, 2021, “Overview NCNR,” presentation to the Panel on Assessment of the Center for 

Neutron Research, July 20. 
31 

technologically/industrially relevant. Neutrons provide a particularly incisive probe in this field, where 

the structure and dynamics of hydrogen or hydrogen-rich molecules, as well as that of other light 

elements such as lithium, are critical to many of the key materials and processes. The NCNR suite of 

instruments is also well-adapted to this field, from powder diffraction measurements and SANS and 

reflectometry studies of nanomaterials and surfaces and interfaces, to inelastic and quasielastic studies of 

excitations and diffusion, many in combination with dedicated sample environment equipment—for 

example, to enable loading and manipulation of gases in situ. 

Accomplishments 

Many of the most highly cited recent publications from work at NCNR are in the field of energy 

technologies. Prominent examples include work to improve the performance of organic nanoparticles as 

photocatalysts for the conversion and storage of solar energy through hydrogen production.6

 SANS 

studies of nanoparticles incorporating a semiconductor heterojunction revealed how control of their 

nanomorphology through the method of synthesis greatly increased their efficiency in generating 

hydrogen. Neutron depth profiling studies7

 were used to explore the potential of solid electrolytes for 

lithium anodes for high-energy batteries, revealing the growth of lithium dendrites in situ and pointing to 

ways in which these materials might be used most effectively in future devices. 

On the topic of metal-organic frameworks, a series of collaborative publications with research groups 

at University of Texas, San Antonio, Zhejiang University, and other groups in academia, novel porous 

materials including microporous organic frameworks (MOFs)8

 and hydrogen-bonded organic frameworks 

(HOFs)9

 were explored as ethane selective adsorbents for ethane/ethylene separations. Analysis of 

powder X-ray diffraction and single crystal diffraction was used to determine the structure of these 

materials. Adsorption in a flexible MOF was found to exhibit a rare increase of adsorption capacity with 

temperature attributed to sorbate sorbent interactions affecting the MOF structure, and an application in 

the separation of propylene from propane was demonstrated.10 Neutron powder diffraction measurements 

conducted at the BT-1 neutron powder diffractometer at NCNR provided evidence for weak binding of 

CO2 as the basis of C2H2/CO2 selectivity in an iron/nickel metal-organic framework with multiple binding 

sites.11 In the later study, diffraction data were collected in CO2- and C2D2-loaded MOF samples. The use 

of deuterated acetylene allowed to avoid the large incoherent neutron scattering background caused by the 

hydrogen in C2H2. These and other studies of selective gas adsorption in MOFs including the use of 

neutron diffraction of gas-loaded samples to obtain structural information12 constitute a success of NCNR. 

Challenges and Opportunities 

In the area of Chemical Physics, there is excellent in-house expertise in both science and techniques, 

including in situ capabilities to develop much more, thus the opportunity to continue supporting and 

growing this area is well justified. As with other areas within NCNR, the challenge of replacing older 

equipment is certainly there and requires careful prioritizing to maintain a technological advantage. 

6

 See J. Kosco, et al., in Appendix D. 

7

 See F. Han, et al., in Appendix D. 

8

 See J. Pei, et al., in Appendix D. 

9

 See X. Zhang, et al., in Appendix D. 

10 See M.-H. Yu, et al., in Appendix D. 

11 See J. Gao, et al., in Appendix D. 

12 See R.-B. Lin, et al., in Appendix D. 
32 

ENGINEERING PHYSICS 

Introduction 

NCNR’s current effort in engineering physics is focused on (1) stress analysis of industrial-scale parts 

(e.g., automotive, made by additive manufacturing) using residual stress diffractometer; (2) imaging of 

complex engineering devices evolution during operation, including materials aspects of novel battery 

technologies; and (3) analysis of microcrack formation in concrete, as it affects seismic resilience of 

existing structures critical for the U.S infrastructure. These efforts are consistent with the aspects of the 

NCNR mission supporting NIST in serving U.S. industries and manufacturing. These activities are of 

great societal impact because, based on neutrons unique capabilities to probe nondestructively the interior 

of structures and components, they provide information regarding the aging of infrastructure (e.g., 

concrete used in construction of buildings), and of parts and devices that are used in everyday life (e.g., 

batteries and automotive parts) which allow scientists and engineers to improve safety and reliability. The 

impact of these activities to the United States can be significant as, for example, the cost to owners to 

repair concrete in the United States is estimated to be $20 billion per year.13 Evidently, they also 

contribute to the timely development of new products based on novel technologies. 

Accomplishments 

Accomplishments in engineering physics include unique studies of engineering devices and serving 

U.S. industry and manufacturing. Impressive capabilities to analyze real-world samples and phenomena 

affecting structural properties during operation are available and they are combined with data analytics 

and multilevel resolution capabilities. Although publications in engineering journals may not be as highly 

cited as more science-focused publications, the work produced is of high value to the engineering 

research community and the U.S. industry and public. For example, neutron diffraction (BT-8 Residual 

Stress Diffractometer optimized for depth profiling of residual stresses in large components)14 combined 

with synchrotron X-ray diffraction (XRD) provided understanding of residual stress and strain caused by 

rapid melting and fast cooling encountered in additive manufacturing. 

Challenges and Opportunities 

There are opportunities to expand the range of industrially relevant problems addressed, especially 

with respect to the number of complex samples that can be analyzed and the range length and time scales 

that can be probed by combination of existing instruments and the development of new ones. An example 

is the ongoing development of a novel neutron imaging far field interferometer. The combination of 

interferometry, imaging, and small-angle scattering, which are all signature techniques of NCNR, to 

achieve structural characterization in heterogeneous materials (porous materials, concrete, gels) over 

extended length scales can have a transformative impact on hierarchical and architected materials for their 

emerging and established uses. Applications range from reliability of structural components in residential 

buildings, transportation, defense, and energy production, to packaging of food and medicine to ensure 

safety and efficacy. In addition to industry already involved in such activities at NCNR, this effort should 

13 American Society of Civil Engineers, “Investment Gap 2020–2029,” ASCE’s 2021 Infrastructure Report 

Card, https://infrastructurereportcard.org/resources/investment-gap-2020-2029/, accessed January 20, 2022. 14 T.Q. Phan, M. Strantza, M.R. Hill, T.H. Gnaupel-Herold, J. Heigel, C.R. D’Elia, A.T. DeWald, et al., 2019, 

Elastic residual strain and stress measurements and corresponding part deflections of 3D additive manufacturing 

builds of IN625 AM-bench artifacts using neutron diffraction, synchrotron X-ray diffraction, and contour method, 

Integrating Materials and Manufacturing Innovation, 8:318–334, https://doi.org/10.1007/s40192-019-00149-0. 
33 

engage the broader academic research community to determine challenges and design instruments for 

emerging research problems with high technological and societal impact. This engagement will 

eventually lead to the desirable outcome of recruitment of new industry participants. Challenges in both 

hardware (e.g., the fabrication of resolution-preserving dynamic transmission micro-grating) and software 

(AI to extract microstructural information) as well as the selection of high-impact problems to be 

addressed are an opportunity to engage the broader engineering community from academia and industry 

to participate in these forward-looking developments. NCNR’s achievements in engineering physics 

could be further highlighted beyond journal publications in media accessible to the public to disseminate 

the importance of neutron research and instrumentation development to change and improve everyday 

life. Some of these are highlighted on the NIST website.15 

NEUTRON SCIENCE 

The Neutron Physics Group (NPG), which is part of the Physical Measurement Laboratory (PML), 

operates eight beams at NCNR and focuses on three main areas: calibration and metrology, fundamental 

science, and applied physics research. It also has partnerships with the University of Maryland, the 

University of Waterloo, and the Department of Energy (DOE) Nuclear Physics (NP) and Energy 

Efficiency and Renewable Energy (EERE) programs. It operates through proposals and collaborations 

with universities and industry. 

Accomplishments 

The fundamental science experiments aim to test the standard model and go beyond the standard 

model to search for new physics—for example, search for a fifth force. These are very long term 

experiments (several years), focused on increasing precision through systematic tests, and cross-checks 

between different types of measurements. The electron-antineutrino correlation (aCORN) experiment has 

been running since 2017 and has already produced two publications. The neutron lifetime experiment was 

in progress on BL-2 until the unplanned shutdown and was planned to run through 2022, when the 

planned shutdown (for cold source upgrade) will occur. The Precision Neutron Metrology project at 

NCNR is developing Photon Assisted Neutron Detector (PhAND) thermal detectors and uses a unique 

NIST PML capability by measuring the absolute activity of an alpha source to ultimately determine 

neutron fluence with world-best precision. The neutrino physics project Precision Reactor Oscillation and 

Spectrum Experiment (PROSPECT) determines the number of neutrinos that should be seen as a function 

of energy. This allows the group to resolve discrepancies between measured and calculated numbers of 

neutrinos. 

As discussed in Chapter 2, the Interferometry facility is one of four in the world and one of the best 

two.16,17 A notable accomplishment was the introduction of the orbital angular momentum to create 

neutrino spin-orbit lattices in analogy to optical lattices produced by circularly polarized light.18 The 

group has also developed a novel measurement of the neutron charge radius, by using Pendellösung 

interference (interference inside a Bragg diffracting crystal). The Far Field Interferometry project aims at 

15 NIST, https://www.nist.gov/industry-impacts, accessed January 21, 2022. 16 K. Weigandt, et al., NIST, 2021, “Neutron Interferometric Microscopy Small Forces and Hierarchical 

Structures,” presentation to the Panel on Assessment of the Center for Neutron Research, July 21. 17 J. Nico, NIST, 2021, “Recent Neutron Physics Group Activities at the NCNR,” presentation to the Panel on 

Assessment of the Center for Neutron Research by S. Dewey and D. Hussey, July 21. 18 D. Sarenac, et al., “Generation and Detection of Spin-Orbit Coupled Neutron Beams,” Proceedings of the 

National Academy of Sciences, October 8, 2019, https://www.pnas.org/content/116/41/20328, accessed January 21, 

2022. 
34 

developing a 10-meter-long path interferometer to explore weak interactions and increase sensitivity for 

measuring the gravitational constant (G). 

The imaging group is developing a first-in-the-world tomography system that uses simultaneously 

neutron and X-ray beams, critical for testing infrastructure quality (fractures, pores, etc.). 

Challenges and Opportunities 

The NG-C fundamental physics beamline currently has the highest cold flux in the United States, but 

this is anticipated to be doubled with the liquid deuterium cold source, and furthermore with very low fast 

neutron and gamma backgrounds. The upgrades will allow a change in experiment post-outage, with a 

neutron spin rotation experiment planned. 

Developments in thermal neutron detectors for use in demanding environments such as space, 

allowing for exciting applications such as Detecting Object’s Water with Spatial Epithermal-Neutron 

Resolution (DOWSER) for deployment on a planetary rover.19

The alpha-gamma neutron metrology activity is a unique NIST capability that can measure the 

absolute activity of an alpha source and determines neutron fluence with a world-best precision of 0.06 

percent. This will become a user facility in the future, with potential applications in research and in 

industry. 

The neutron interferometry group is able to perform high-precision measurements thanks to the very 

long, best in the world, stability of their instruments. This allows experiments such as entangling the 

neutron spin and angular momentum to create lattices of spin-orbit coupled states. A far field 

interferometry proof of concept has also been demonstrated (the INFER/IMS project), with a potential 10-

meter-long path, which would be suitable for studying the weak interaction, for example. 

The neutron imaging group of the NIST Physical Measurements Laboratory operating on BT-2 and 

NG-6 is very strong and highly impactful. It also operates a user program, allocating 25 percent of 

beamtime on the BT-2 instrument through a refereed proposal system, with additional access available 

through a collaborative access mechanism. Significant impacts have been demonstrated in fuel-cell 

technology with partnerships with General Motors and EERE at DOE. The group leverages the results 

with innovative software developments for processing the multitudes of data—for example, automated 

image segmentation tools. The recently installed (August 15, 2021) Cold Neutron Imaging Instrument 

(CNII) is commissioned and working well. There is a well-defined plan for developing this instrument. 

The upgrades are being coordinated with the guide renewals that are planned (NG-6 in this case) to 

optimize both. With the planned cold-source upgrade, the new curved supermirror, and a new innovative 

neutron imaging lens, imaging with time and spatial resolutions close to synchrotron-like performance 

will be possible for neutron imaging. 

As well as the opportunities, significant challenges are experienced as a result of the outages, and this 

will significantly impact the entire NPG program. The NG-6 guide will start to be dismantled in October 

2022 and will not be fully reinstalled and commissioned until 2026, 2 years after the completion of the 

cold source. Some instrument upgrades will be undertaken during the dark period. Of course, the result 

will be significantly improved performance across the entire suite of instruments. 

Finding: NCNR has a vibrant research program that generates about 350 peer-reviewed papers per 

year, with above-average impact in terms of very highly cited papers. In a 2018 citation study by the 

Canadian group Science-Metrix, NCNR appears as the leading neutron facility in terms of average 

relative citations. In this metric, the world average number of citations is 1.0, and 1.2 would be 20 

percent more citations than the average. NCNR scores nearly 2 (1.95) on this scale, with other world 

neutron facilities in the range 1.03 to 1.57 (for the period 2000–2017). The report also points out that 

19 J. Nico, NIST, 2021, “Recent Neutron Physics Group Activities at the NCNR,” presentation to the Panel on 

Assessment of the Center for Neutron Research, July 22. 
35 

“The NCNR is ... the only institution examined to have displayed consistently high performances 

across most indicators.” 

Finding: NCNR has world-class scientific standing in soft and hard condensed matter and biology, 

including self-assembling systems and membrane dynamics, topological insulators, and exotic 

superconductivity-magnetic interactions. The neutron science facilities are unique in the brightness of 

the cold flux, the stability of the flux, and the measurement precision, enabling many fundamental 

science measurements beyond the standard model. Industrially relevant measurements and 

characterization in chemical physics and engineering physics include dynamics of polymers, gels, and 

complex fluids, minerals and rocks, materials for energy technologies such as metal organic 

frameworks, catalysts and in situ measurements, and residual stress in industrial materials. The 

development of an instrument is in progress that will simultaneously combine X-ray and neutron 

tomography and will enable nondestructive testing of infrastructure such as concrete. 
36 

5 

Portfolio of Scientific Expertise 

NCNR USER PROGRAM 

The National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST) Center for Neutron Research (NCNR) is 

dedicated to providing neutron beams for use by the scientific user community in keeping with the scope 

and mission of its parent agency, NIST. NCNR supports a large user program. Twice per year, there is an 

open call for user proposals, which are submitted via an online portal. In addition to the five instruments 

operated by CHRNS, NCNR directly runs user programs for six instruments: two 30-meter Small-Angle 

Neutron Scattering (SANS) instruments; a Disk Chopper Spectrometer (DCS); a Multi-Angle Grazing 

Incidence K-Vector (MAGIK); an Ultra Small Angle Neutron Scattering (uSANS); and a thermal Triple 

Axis Spectrometer (TAS), BT-7. Proposals are peer-reviewed by three to five external referees for 

technical merit and by the NCNR beam scientists for feasibility. Proposals are required to include a list of 

recent publications from previous beamtime allocations. The proposals are then ranked, and awards of 

beam time are made by the Beam-Time Allocation Committee (BTAC). Proposals not awarded beamtime 

are returned to the user with comments received from the referees and the BTAC to improve subsequent 

submission. 

NCNR also grants access to the community to six other instruments through a collaborative access 

mechanism: High Resolution Powder Diffractometer (BT-1); Spin Polarized Inelastic Neutron 

Spectrometer (SPINS); Horizontal sample Reflector (H-Refl); Double Axis Residual Stress Texture 

Single Crystal Spectrometer (DARTS); TAS (BT-4); and Polarized Beam Reflectometer (PBR). There are 

not sufficient staff and resources to run full user programs on these instruments. Some of the science 

programs at these instruments are highly productive and impactful (for example, the BT-1 instrument). 

Some of the instruments are undergoing upgrades (DARTS), and others are slated to be replaced (SPINS 

and H-Refl). 

Accomplishments 

The NCNR user program continues to enjoy enormous success in terms of productivity, scientific 

impact, and user satisfaction. It serves a broad base of U.S. researchers from academia, industry, 

government laboratories, and NIST as well as a limited number of international users. It is generally quite 

successful at broadening the user base through recruitment of new users, as well as serving existing users. 

Publication rates and impacts are high compared to international user facilities.1

 The average publication 

rate per instrument-operating day is around 1.5 papers and around 20 papers per year for most 

 

1

 D. Neumann, NIST, 2021, “Overview of the Neutron Condensed Matter Science,” presentation to the Panel on 

Assessment of the Center for Neutron Research, July 20. 
37 

instruments, with the powder diffraction and fully supported SANS instruments producing far more (up to 

80 per year). More than 2 percent of NCNR papers in the past decade have been labeled as “highly cited” 

(in the top 1 percent in a given field) by Clarivate, which publishes Web of Science, so NCNR papers are 

having above average impact. Further, in a citation study by the Canadian group Science-Metrix,2 NCNR 

appears as the leading neutron facility in terms of average of relative citations (ARC). In this metric, the 

world average number of citations is 1.0, and 1.2 would be 20 percent more citations than the average. As 

noted in Chapters 2 and 4, NCNR scores nearly 2 (1.95) on this scale, with other world neutron facilities 

in the range 1.03 to 1.57 (for the period 2000–2017). The report also contains the quote “NCNR is ... the 

only institution examined to have displayed consistently high performances across most indicators.” In its 

mission to support U.S. industry, NCNR was a key contributor to a number of technological 

breakthroughs in this period too, including gels for oral drug delivery, use of shear-thickening fluids in 

impact resistant applications, additives to jet fuel, and ion exchange membranes. 

Challenges and Opportunities 

In terms of numbers of users,3

 the facility has maintained its strong numbers from the previous period 

(which came after the expansion), maintaining 25 percent more users on average than the period 2006–

2010 before the expansion. Both COVID and the unplanned shutdown will affect these numbers moving 

forward.

The collaborative access mode instruments present both risks and opportunities. They are in this 

category because NCNR has insufficient staff to run fully fledged external user programs on them, which 

might be considered as a missed opportunity. On the other hand, it gives an opportunity to react quickly 

and be flexible enough to support scientific opportunities as they emerge. A case in point is the work of 

the group of Prof. Subramanian (Oregon State University) on inorganic dyes.4

Despite its high scientific impact, no upgrades are planned for BT-1. A mail-in program is run on BT1 that increases access beyond the collaborative mode experiments. Given its importance to the program 

and a lack of investment, it would be good to have a plan for this instrument. 

Balancing support of existing users versus recruiting new users presents a challenge for the 

instrument scientists to navigate, as new users require quite a bit more instrument scientist handholding. 

Given the overall low staffing levels at the instruments compared to international norms, the staff does a 

remarkable job. However, the activity of broadening and training new users is likely to be negatively 

affected by reduced staffing levels that are discussed elsewhere in this report. 

CHRNS 

The Center for High Resolution Neutron Scattering (CHRNS) is an NIST-NSF partnership that 

provides user support, education, and outreach to the academic scientific community.5

 

The partnership is highly impactful and an important contributor to the NCNR mission of serving the 

neutron scattering needs of the community—in this case, the academic research community. It provides 

additional user support for experiments, develops and maintains additional special environments for 

instruments and user-facing software, and runs educational and outreach programs, with emphasis on 

2

 Science-Metrix, 2018, “Bibliometric Study on CNBC’s Scientific Publications, 1980–2017,” 

https://www.science-metrix.com/sites/default/files/science-metrix/publications/sm_cnbc_final_report_2018.pdf. 

Accessed December 8, 2021. 3

 D. Neumann, NIST, 2021. 

4

 M. Subramanian, Oregon State University, 2021, “Pigments,” presentation to the Panel on Assessment of the 

Center for Neutron Research, July 20. 5

 D. Neumann, NIST, 2021. 
38 

broadening participation of underrepresented groups. It is also instrumental in developing and 

commissioning new instruments. The instruments that specifically are part of the CHRNS program are the 

Neutron Spin Echo Spectrometer (NSE); Multi-Axis Crystal Spectrometer (MACS); Very Small Angle 

Neutron Scattering (vSANS), High-Flux Backscattering Spectrometer (HFBS); and Chromatic Analysis 

Neutron Diffractometer or Reflector (CANDoR). The program is run as a cooperative stewardship model, 

which is working very well and meeting the challenges of multi-agency activity. 

Accomplishments 

The partnership is viewed favorably by all stakeholders It operates more than 10 percent of the 

neutron scattering user instrumentation in the United States for less than 2 percent of the cost, and the 

instruments in the program are undoubtedly world leading. NIST views the partnership as central to 

making its user program mission successful and is a strong supporter. The scientific community 

recognizes that the NSF investment is highly leveraged and the resulting programs of high value to the 

community, as shown by the fact that the grant was recently renewed for an additional 5 years. The user 

community gives very strong anecdotal feedback about the program. Last, the science produced is highly 

impactful, as measured by the publications per supported instrument. 

Challenges and Opportunities 

The unplanned February 2021 shutdown presented a challenge to the partnership insofar as it is built 

around support for user experiments. Other activities of CHRNS, such as instrument and software 

development and the education and outreach programs, can proceed (and even be prioritized given the 

loss of beamtime), and this has been done. Furthermore, to mitigate the loss of beam access, NIST has 

reimbursed NSF financially for undelivered beamtime. A potential challenge is that it is not completely 

clear how long NIST can continue to do this if the unplanned shutdown becomes very long. 

The staff and academic partners plan to use the outage to accelerate the move to time-resolved 

studies.6

 Preliminary results on MACS are very exciting, as described elsewhere, but also developing 

capabilities on CANDoR and vSANS and upgrading sample environments for this purpose is an 

appropriate response to the challenges of the loss of neutrons. There is a significant investment in 

software for data analysis in the renewal, with a push toward an infrastructure for Findability, 

Accessibility, Interoperability, and Reuse of Digital Assets (FAIR) data access. This is hoped to exploit 

the opportunity to leverage artificial intelligence and machine learning (AI/ML) for data analysis. A 

challenge here is that formal ties to strong applied math and ML groups were not evident to the reviewers. 

There are other Materials Genome Initiative (MGI) activities at NIST in the area of materials data 

analytics, but the interactions with NCNR also do not appear to be highly developed. The NCNR 

management is aware of this, and some of those activities, such as data standards and dissemination, are a 

moving target and not the current focus in NCNR/CHRNS. But it may also be a missed opportunity. 

nSoft 

nSoft is an industrial consortium designed to engage industry in neutron scattering.7

 Member 

companies pay $25,000 per year to participate in this program, which focuses on the development of 

6

 C. Brown, NIST, 2021, “Overview of the Structure and Dynamics of Materials,” presentation to the Panel on 

Assessment of the Center for Neutron Research, July 20. 7

 R. Jones, NIST, 2021, “The nSoft Consortium,” presentation to the Panel on Assessment of the Center for 

Neutron Research, July 20. 
39 

advanced measurements of industrially relevant soft materials and manufacturing processes. nSoft 

supports roughly three full-time employees (FTEs) of NIST staff, which is covered by NIST funds. The 

consortium has complete control over the 10-meter SANS and arranges beamtime on other instruments 

for member companies, as well as providing support for those experiments. All nSoft research is 

nonproprietary (any company, whether in nSoft or not, may obtain proprietary beamtime for proprietary 

research on a full-cost-recovery basis). However, proposals for nSoft research projects that are to be 

performed on nSoft’s beamlines do not pass through the normal user proposal review process; instead, 

they are approved by nSoft personnel. This procedure overcomes significant impediments to industrial 

use of national facilities—for example, by reducing the time required to get beamtime. The intent is to be 

more useful to the industrial sector, which often has to deal with significant time constraints. 

Beyond running the 10 m SANS instrument, moving forward nSoft is targeting capabilities in 

rheology, more complex formulations, and higher throughput—sample preparation to data analysis—and 

increased remote working, which is a great advantage for industrial partners. 

Accomplishments 

In response to a recommendation of the previous committee,8

 nSoft has more clearly defined9 success 

metrics: number and length of memberships and number and quality of impacts. On average, the 

membership was 11 per year in this review period, with an average duration of membership of 4.3 years. 

Publication rate seems to be reasonable for such an activity at around 10 per year. There is also an activity 

to capture “impact stories,” which go beyond the publication metric to capture business impacts of the 

open research. 

Challenges and Opportunities 

nSoft has determined targets for its success metrics moving forward. It would like to target support 

for automation and mail in for 20–25 members, new capabilities mentioned above, lengthening 

membership through better integration into member internal processes, doubling the publication rate and 

better collaborative capture of impact stories. 

In response to member wishes, nSoft is developing an autonomous formulation lab,10 which is an 

exciting development and shows the synergy of such an industry/NIST partnership, which can then 

develop shared capabilities that are responsive to industrial priorities. 

A recommendation to look into a hard-matter version of nSoft was attempted but not successful. The 

bottleneck is the NIST (or other government agency) base funding that underpins nSoft. New funding of 

$1.5 million per year is needed. At a time of budget constraints, this is a challenge. Although significant 

effort was expended in this direction during the review period without success, an “nHard” consortium 

would still be a worthwhile goal moving forward if the right susceptibilities can be found in the system. 

8

 National Academies of Sciences, Engineering and Medicine, 2018, An Assessment of the National Institute of 

Standards and Technology Center for Neutron Research: Fiscal Year 2018, The National Academies Press, 

Washington, DC, https://www.nap.edu/catalog/25282/an-assessment-of-the-center-for-neutron-research-at-thenational-institute-of-standards-and-technology. 9

 R. Jones, NIST, 2021. 

10 Y. Hernandez, NIST, 2021, “Highlights of the Activities of the User Services,” presentation to the Panel on 

Assessment of the Center for Neutron Research, July 22. 
40 

UNIVERSITY PARTNERSHIPS 

Accomplishments 

NCNR has cooperative agreements with a number of universities, including the University of 

Delaware, the University of Maryland, the University of Indiana, and Carnegie Mellon University. Other 

universities may apply for their own cooperative agreement when calls for proposals are announced. The 

agreements provide NCNR funding to universities for the support of technical staff, postdoctoral 

researchers, and graduate students engaged in neutron science and instrumentation at the NCNR. 

Technical staff, including beamline scientists and software developers, hired under this program help run 

the NCNR facility and are stationed at NCNR. 

Most graduate students are stationed at their host universities, except for an extended stay at NCNR 

sometime during their Ph.D. research. Students benefit by having a rich research experience with 

extensive time and interactions with NCNR staff and facilities. Faculty involved in these agreements have 

the advantage of having an on-site representative from their group at NCNR. They serve the NCNR 

mission by increasing the scientific impact of the facility as well as attracting high-quality new projects 

and personnel into neutron scattering and into NCNR. 

There are also strong interactions with other parts of NIST, including the Institute for Bioscience and 

Biotechnology Research, the Chemical Sciences Division, the Materials Measurement Laboratory, the 

Biomolecular Labeling Laboratory, and Radiation Physics, among others. These are mutually synergetic 

overlaps where the synergy aids each entity to better meet its mission, and they are to be encouraged. The 

interactions are already strong and deep, with significant inputs from NIST partners in the scientific 

impacts of the center and also in its running. Recently, there have been 187 researchers from other parts 

of NIST, constituting 6 percent of all research participants.11

Challenges and Opportunities 

It would be beneficial for NCNR to consider increasing the number of these agreements, as long as 

they are meaningful, to further diversify the academic engagement and scientific impact of the center. 

NIST STAFF 

NCNR fields a staff of 202, down from 217 in 2018, of which 85 are in condensed matter science, 47 

in reactor operations and engineering, 36 in research facility and operations, and 34 in the center office 

(CO).12 The CO functions include health physics, the user office, IT, and industrial safety among other 

functions. 

Accomplishments 

There are fewer than five affiliated technical staff/instrument scientists per instrument to 

serve/collaborate with users. In addition, NCNR scientists have active research programs of their own. 

For comparison, the world’s largest neutron user facility, the Institut Laue-Langevin (ILL), requires seven 

technical staff/instrument scientists per instrument. NIST has maintained leadership in neutron metrology 

11 D. Neuman, NIST, 2021, “Science at the NCNR,” presentation to the Panel on Assessment of the Center for 

Neutron Research, July 20. 12 R. Dimeo, NIST, 2021, “Overview NCNR,” presentation to the Panel on Assessment of the Center for 

Neutron Research, July 20. 
41 

methods, despite having a low flux reactor, through ensuring that the staff has time to use the instruments 

in research programs aligned with the NIST mission and to perform methodological research and 

development. 

NCNR has been successful at recruiting and retaining a high-quality staff, and this is one of the key 

factors in the good productivity and outsized scientific impact. This occurs through partnerships with 

universities as well as postdoctoral programs. There is a very successful postdoctoral program that is quite 

diverse and results in a relatively high number of placements into NCNR staff and academic positions at 

the end of the postdoctorate. 

Challenges and Opportunities 

Successful scientific output depends critically on the expertise of the scientific staff and their time 

available to support users and drive research. Reductions in staff numbers owing to funding-induced 

unfilled positions is leading to increased pressure on scientific staff time for administrative and technical 

support activities and will lead to diminished scientific output.13

This will also impact the mission to expand the user base and increase its diversity, which takes 

additional staff time and attention. A challenge may also arise if pressures on staff owing to expanded 

support duties may affect morale and make it more difficult to recruit and retain the best people. Strong 

existing collaboration networks provide an opportunity for further development but require the staff to 

have time to engage. There are strong feedbacks in a system like this, and the NCNR may be approaching 

a tipping point where the feedback goes negative and staff loss and difficulty in recruiting become acute. 

The tipping point has not yet been reached but may be if the current staffing trajectory continues for too 

long. 

While COVID and the unplanned shutdown present major challenges, NCNR management has 

produced an effective and well thought out response. Development project timetables have been 

accelerated, deferred maintenance in the special environments group is being addressed, software and 

remote access issues are being addressed, as well as taking the opportunity for “back catalogue” data 

analysis and manuscript writing. The management is coordinating these activities so that there is a rather 

strategic response that will leverage the outcomes. They have also worked with other facilities to try to 

mitigate beamtime loss, although this is difficult because other facilities remain oversubscribed. 

In the virtual meeting, there was no opportunity to meet staff in closed discussions, but there is a 

sense that communication between management and staff is good and handled effectively, and that junior 

staff is receiving good mentorship. 

The findings, conclusions, and recommendations on instrument staffing can be found in Chapter 3. 

Finding: The NCNR user program continues to enjoy enormous success in terms of productivity, 

scientific impact, and user satisfaction. Publication rates and impacts are high compared to 

international user facilities. The Center for High Resolution Neutron Scattering (CHRNS) is a longstanding impactful NIST-NSF partnership that provides user support, education, and outreach to the 

academic scientific community, and has been renewed for another 5 years. The number of proposals 

to use beamtime were oversubscribed by roughtly a factor of 2, and supported users continued to rise 

to roughly 3,000 per year in 2020. 

 

Finding: NCNR sponsors highly effective partnerships, cooperative agreements, and consortia for 

academia and industry as well as intra- and interagency collaborations. 

13 R. Dimeo, NIST, gave an update on staffing and noted that there has been an 18-member staff reduction since 

2018. 
42 

Conclusion: It would be beneficial for NCNR to consider increasing the number of partnership 

meaningful agreements to further diversify the academic engagement and scientific impact of the 

center. 

RECOMMENDATION: The National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST) Center 

for Neutron Research (NCNR) should consider developing and strengthening its connections to 

university-based engineering research groups with links to industry as a mechanism for 

increased usage of the engineering diffractometer and other industry-relevant instruments, and 

potentially as a mechanism for support for additional staffing. 
43 

6 

Dissemination of Outputs 

The National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST) Center for Neutron Research (NCNR) 

program activities can take the form of publications; participation and organization of workshops and 

summer schools; the formation of consortia that extend the work of NCNR to industry, academia, and 

other government agencies; and education and outreach efforts for the benefit of middle school, high 

school, and undergraduate students. 

PUBLICATIONS 

The publication output of NCNR continues to be very strong, with the past 2 years (2019 and 2020) 

resulting in a total of 665 publications in 209 journals. Numbers of publications by year are shown in 

Figure 6.1; these numbers show an upward trend over three decades. 

FIGURE 6.1 Number of publications by year at NCNR. SOURCE: Presentation given to the panel by 

Dan Neuman, July 20, 2021. 
44 

During 2019 and 2020, the journals that exhibited the most recurrence were Physical Review B

(publications = 57, impact factor [IF] = 3.575), Soft Matter (publications = 20, IF = 3.14), Physical 

Review Materials (publications = 30, IF = 3.337), Physical Review Letters (publications = 21, IF = 8.385), 

and Macromolecules (publications = 31, IF = 5.918). All of these are excellent journals with robust peer 

review. NCNR researchers also published in journals of the highest impact. From the perspective of 

citations, the record shows top papers,1

 as listed in Appendix D. NCNR is performing at a level of 

excellence, and there are no apparent challenges that need to be met. 

WORKSHOPS AND EDUCATIONAL PROGRAMS 

NCNR has been very active in outreach activities, and NCNR staff2

 reported that the researchers at 

NCNR are enthusiastically engaged in it. 

Accomplishments 

The flagship outreach program is the highly successful Center for High Resolution Neutron Scattering 

(CHRNS)-sponsored summer school for graduate students and young scientists. In 2018 (June 19–23), the 

summer school focused on “Methods and Applications of Small Angle Neutron Scattering and Neutron 

Reflectivity.” Forty-two graduate and postdoctoral students from 32 universities and five industrial 

researchers participated in the school. In 2019 (July 22–26), the summer school focused on “Methods and 

Applications of Neutron Spectroscopy.” Thirty-four graduate and postdoctoral students from 29 

universities participated in the school. 

The 2020 summer school was held virtually in February 2021 because of the pandemic. The “Virtual 

School on SANS and Neutron Reflectometry” had the participation of 36 students affiliated with North 

American universities and U.S. industry located in 22 U.S. states, the District of Columbia, and Mexico. 

Students came from a diverse set of backgrounds including chemical engineering, materials science and 

engineering, chemistry, physics, biochemistry, biomolecular engineering, energy, mechanical 

engineering, aerospace and nuclear engineering, polymer science, and electrical and computer 

engineering. Typically, members of underrepresented groups comprise more than 30 percent of 

participants, although specific numbers for each year were not provided.

The Summer High School Intern Program (SHIP) is a very successful, competitive NIST-wide 

program for students who are interested in performing scientific research during the summer. In 2018, 

CHRNS hosted seven interns from local high schools. The students studied the environmental factors that 

contribute to glass aging and alteration, explored segmentation techniques for analysis of neutron images 

of meteorites, developed reinforcement learning algorithms for efficiently obtaining crystallographic 

measurements, and automated a slit rheometer for SANS and a neutron spin flipper. The results of the 

students’ summer investigations were highlighted in a NIST-wide poster session, as well as in a wellattended symposium at the NCNR. 

In 2019, CHRNS hosted eight interns from local high schools. The students investigated magnetic 

dead layers in rhombohedral perovskites, created an enhanced web interface for the NCNR data 

repository, improved phase segmentation techniques for analysis of neutron tomography images, 

developed reinforcement learning algorithms for efficiently obtaining crystallographic measurements, and 

optimized a neutron spin flipper using active learning algorithms. The results of the students’ summer 

investigations were highlighted in a NIST-wide poster session, as well as in a well-attended symposium at 

the NCNR. 

1

 According to Google Scholar, July 28, 2021. 

2

 J. Dura, NIST, 2021, “Education and Outreach Activities at the NCNR,” presentation to the Panel on 

Assessment of the Center for Neutron Research, July 20. 
45 

In lieu of the NIST-wide SHIP in the summer of 2020, CHRNS remotely hosted six interns from local 

high schools. The students optimized algorithms for fitting order parameters through reinforcement 

learning, explored security benchmark implementations for Linux, supplemented an augmented reality 

training simulation program for the reactor operators, and developed an analysis program for prompt 

gamma activation spectra. The results of the students’ summer investigations were highlighted at a virtual 

symposium in August 2020. During summer 2021, the program was virtual, with the participation of four 

students. 

CHRNS co-sponsored several other workshops, including the second, third, and fourth Fundamentals 

of Quantum Materials winter school at the University of Maryland (January 8–11, 2018; January 14–19, 

2019; January 6–9, 2020); the fifth Neutron Day at the University of Delaware (November 8, 2017); the 

second biennial International Society for Sample Environment training course at NIST (November 13–17, 

2017); and the 8th annual international Design and Engineering of Neutron Instruments Meeting 

(DENIM), which was held in North Bethesda, Maryland (September 17–19, 2019). More than 125 people 

attended DENIM from more than 15 countries, comprising participants from other neutron scattering 

institutes, universities, and the corporations that support the community. DENIM was held under the 

patronage of the International Society of Neutron Instrument Engineers (ISNIE) and organized jointly by 

NCNR and the University of Maryland. In 2019, NCNR also hosted the 2nd annual ISNIE summer school 

with a focus on neutron guides. 

CHRNS continues to participate in NIST’s Summer Undergraduate Research Fellowship (SURF) 

program. In 2018, CHRNS hosted 19 SURF students, including 7 returning interns, one of whom 

previously participated in the SHIP program. The students participated in research projects such as 

exploration of the rheological properties of dense lipid vesicle solutions, characterization of adjuvantprotein interactions in vaccines, fabrication of crosslinked silica-based nanoporous networks, Monte 

Carlo exploration of focused neutron guide geometries, and development of a virtual training simulator 

for reactor operators using a HoloLens technology. The students presented their work at the NIST SURF 

colloquium in August 2018. 

In 2019, CHRNS hosted 15 SURF students, including 2 previous SHIP students. The students 

performed research on topics ranging from self-assembled amphiphilic diblock copolymers, oral insulin 

delivery via microencapsulation, depth dependence of skyrmions in thin films, and the thermal-hydraulics 

feasibility for an ultra-compact nuclear reactor. They presented their work at the NIST SURF colloquium 

in August 2019. 

Because of the pandemic, this program was cancelled during 2020. Currently (2021), the program is 

active in a virtual format with 10 students. 

CHRNS initiated a Research Experiences for Teachers (RET) program in 2010. For the summer of 

2018, the program hosted two teachers from Montgomery County, Maryland. Scott Hanna from Winston 

Churchill High School studied the microscopic dynamics of liquid and solid hydrogen using the Disk 

Chopper Spectrometer (DCS) under the guidance of Tim Prisk and Richard Azuah. Munna Chakrabarti 

from Watkins Mill High School investigated the rheological properties on an insulin analogue using 

SANS with mentor Grethe Jensen. 

For the summer of 2019, the program again hosted two teachers from Montgomery County, 

Maryland. Scott Hanna from Winston Churchill High School returned for a second year to study the 

diffusion of quantum liquids in bulk and confinement using DCS under the guidance of Tim Prisk and 

Richard Azuah. Brennan Boothby from the Nora School investigated pluronic micelles in polymer 

nanocomposites using SANS with mentors Liz Kelley and Antonio Faraone. Both Mr. Hanna and Mr. 

Boothby highlighted their research in oral presentations in August 2019. 

Many specialized tours and other activities for middle school, high school, and university students are 

offered throughout the year, including the Conferences for Undergraduate Women in Physics (CUWIP) 

tour, which was attended by 150 female STEM students. In typical years, CHRNS staff members also 

give science-based talks, participate in Career Days, or lead hands-on demonstrations at local schools, 

participate in STEM events, and even volunteer as robotics coaches. 

 
46 

Challenges and Opportunities 

Based on the experiences of the past year, it is likely that virtual offerings will be expanded. The 

success of the virtual school has also prompted discussions of new training events, tailored to specific 

audiences, either completely online or with a virtual component. For instance, satellite events (e.g., 

proposal writing workshops) and office hours can be held in a virtual environment. CHRNS will use the 

opportunity provided by the current increased telework environment to develop a new virtual or hybrid 

activity that will incorporate some of the most successful aspects of the virtual summer school.3

 This 

program, which will have a specific focus on enhancing the diversity of CHRNS users, will be started 

before the end of 2021. This is an excellent opportunity, and assessments should be provided in future 

evaluations. 

Limited information on the numbers of tours and participants are available in the annual reports and 

the Education and Outreach Handout provided to the panel. A tracking system and assessment for these 

programs is necessary to determine impact. 

A new program, CHRNS Outreach and Research Experience (CORE), is currently being developed. 

It looks promising and has as objective to extend the summer research activities to the academic year. 

Detailed statistics on participation of underrepresented students and women would be relevant for future 

assessments. 

COLLABORATIONS 

Accomplishments 

Over the 2018 reporting year, NCNR served 2,742 researchers. Research participants included users 

who come to NCNR to use the facility, as well as active collaborators, including co-proposers of 

approved experiments, and co-authors of publications resulting from work performed at NCNR. Research 

participants were from 22 NIST divisions and offices, 37 U.S. government laboratories, 42 U.S. states and 

the District of Columbia, 51 U.S. corporations, and 185 U.S. universities.4

Over the 2019 reporting year, NCNR served 2,769 researchers. Research participants were from 17 

NIST divisions and offices, 38 U.S. government laboratories, 42 U.S. states and the District of Columbia 

and Puerto Rico, 50 U.S. corporations, and 181 U.S. universities.5

Over the 2020 reporting year, NCNR served 3,068 researchers. Research participants were from 19 

NIST divisions and offices, 36 U.S. government laboratories, 44 U.S. states and the District of Columbia, 

49 U.S. corporations, and 169 U.S. universities.6

NCNR also has established several partnerships, including the NG-7 SANS Consortium, the nSoft 

Consortium, the NIST/General Motors—Neutron Imaging partnership, and several interagency 

collaborations (with the Smithsonian Institution’s Nuclear Laboratory for Archeological Research and the 

U.S. Food and Drug Administration’s [FDA’s] Center for Food Safety and Applied Nutrition). 

CHRNS pursues many avenues for engaging researchers from institutions that serve diverse groups.7

A partnership between CHRNS and the Interdisciplinary Materials Research and Education Laboratory 

(IMREL) at Fayetteville State University (FSU) was established in August 2018 through the National 

3

 J. Dura, NIST, 2021. 

4

 NIST Center for Neutron Research, 2018 Accomplishments and Opportunities, February 2019,

https://nvlpubs.nist.gov/nistpubs/SpecialPublications/NIST.SP.1231.pdf, accessed October 19, 2021. 5

 NIST Center for Neutron Research, 2019 Accomplishments and Opportunities, December 2019, 

https://nvlpubs.nist.gov/nistpubs/SpecialPublications/NIST.SP.1242.pdf, accessed October 19, 2021. 6

 NIST Center for Neutron Research, 2020 Accomplishments and Opportunities, December 2020. 

https://nvlpubs.nist.gov/nistpubs/SpecialPublications/NIST.SP.1257.pdf, accessed December 7, 2021. 7

 J. Dura, NIST, 2021. 
47 

Science Foundation (NSF) Partnerships for Research and Education in Materials (PREM) program 

(Agreement No. DMR-1827731). This partnership is organized around a common theme of structureprocessing-property correlations of nanomaterials to support student training in the context of research 

using neutron scattering. During the summer of 2019, CHRNS staff members hosted two PREM interns 

(Candyce Collins and Washat Roxanne Ware). 

Challenges and Opportunities 

As part of its expanding education and outreach effort, CHRNS offers to university-based research 

groups with Beam-Time Allocation Committee (BTAC)-approved experimental proposals the opportunity 

to request travel support for an additional graduate student to participate in the experiment.8

 This support 

is intended to enable prospective thesis students, for example, to acquire first-hand experience with a 

technique that they may later use in their own research. Announcements of this program are sent to all the 

university groups whose experimental proposals receive beamtime from the BTAC. Recipients of the 

announcement are encouraged to consider graduate students from underrepresented groups for this 

opportunity. There were 13 participants in 2018, 12 participants in 2019, and 3 participants in 2020 (Q1). 

No demographic information on these students were provided; thus, it is not possible to evaluate how 

many are from underrepresented groups. It would be important to elucidate this information in future 

reporting. 

As a new initiative in the CHRNS grant renewal, this travel funds opportunity will be expanded to 

include a limited number of travel awards to enable graduate students or postdoctorates to attend 

workshops or related CHRNS-sponsored events, once travel to NIST is opened again to users. These 

efforts are commendable, and there is an intention to grow opportunities. It would be important to include 

specific statistics and numbers regarding these funds in future years. 

Also, CHRNS is launching a partnership with California State University, San Bernardino, within the 

NSF Centers of Research Excellence in Science and Technology (CREST) program as part of their new 

Phase II Center for Advanced Functional Materials (HRD-1914777). Two PREM proposals (with the 

University of Texas, San Antonio and Morgan State University) are also currently pending. Details of 

these collaborations and outcomes are important in a future review. 

Information on the numbers of National Research Council fellows and NIST Director’s fellows was 

not provided. This information and further details would be important to determine the impact of these 

fellowships. Also, none of the documentation provided described the number and details of current 

Cooperative Research and Development Agreements (CRADAs). Where these CRADAs are heading is 

an important component of the evaluation of collaborations. There also appear to be collaborations with 

the University of Texas, El Paso; University of the District of Columbia; Northeastern State University; 

and Texas A&M, Kingsville, but no details on these collaborations were provided. Future reporting 

should include details of these collaborations. 

Finding: NCNR has been very active in outreach activities. The flagship outreach program is the 

long-running Center for High Resolution Neutron Scattering (CHRNS)-sponsored summer school for 

graduate students and young scientists, which pivoted successfully to fully online in 2020. More than 

30 percent of the attendees are from under-represented groups, and more than three-quarters of the 

attendees return as users. CHRNS pursues many avenues for engaging researchers from institutions 

that serve diverse groups, including travel support for an additional graduate student as part of the 

beamtime allocated to awarded proposals.It also provides outreach, and tours during the year from 

middle school up to high school and summer programs for teachers, high school students, and 

undergraduates. CHRNS will use the opportunity provided by the current increased telework 

environment to develop a new virtual or hybrid activity that will incorporate some of the most 

8

 J. Dura, NIST, 2021. 
48 

successful aspects of the virtual summer school. This program, which will have a specific focus on 

enhancing the diversity of CHRNS users, will be started soon. 

Conclusion: NCNR pursues most of the myriad outreach activities through CHRNS, in order to 

recruit underrepresented groups into science, technology, engineering, and mathematics (STEM) 

fields and new neutron scattering users and to assist local schools and communities. 

RECOMMENDATION: Information on the size, underrepresented population served, and 

outcomes of the many training, partnership, and outreach activities per year should be 

provided in the future in order to better assess their impact. 
49 

7 

Findings, Conclusions, and Recommendations 

CENTER FOR NEUTRON RESEARCH 

Finding: For five decades, the National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST) Center for 

Neutron Research (NCNR) has played a vital role in National Bureau of Standards (NBS) and then 

NIST internal research, calibration and metrology, and standards development as well as providing an 

outsized role in advancing neutron scattering in the United States as a user facility for the external 

scientific academic, national laboratories, and industrial communities. 

Finding: Until 2021, NCNR has had an excellent safety and reliability record, and from 2016 to 2019 

has delivered an average of 220 days of operation per year. 

Finding: Owing to the onset of the global COVID-19 pandemic, NCNR suspended operations of the 

reactor from March 17, 2020, and restarted it on July 15, 2020, with reduced staffing, internal use 

only of the instruments, and some support for mail-in external user operations. The reactor and 

beamline instruments ran in this way for three run cycles, with an intention to begin another cycle in 

February 2021. On February 3, 2021, the reactor experienced an automatic unplanned shutdown 

owing to fission products detected in the confinement building upon normal startup. There were no 

health or safety impacts on personnel, the public, or the environment; however, the reactor remains 

shut down while NCNR determines the root cause of the incident, implements corrective and 

preventative actions, and requests a restart from the Nuclear Regulatory Commission (NRC). This 

comes 2 years before the planned 11-month reactor shutdown set to begin in calendar year 2023 to 

upgrade the cold neutron source from hydrogen to deuterium before switching from high enriched 

uranium (HEU) to low enriched uranium (LEU) fuel. 

Conclusion: The unplanned shutdown has greatly affected the U.S. neutron scattering community. 

The need for relicensing of the reactor in 2029 and current plan for HEU to LEU conversion in the 

same year will challenge NCNR (extensive work required for relicensing, increased but unknown cost 

of yet to be developed fuel) and increase the downtime for the U.S. scientific user community. 

RECOMMENDATION: To minimize impact to the user community, the National Institute for 

Standards and Technology (NIST) Center for Neutron Research (NCNR) leadership should 

make sure that the scheduled downtime for the NCNR cold source upgrade does not coincide 

with the planned shutdown of the High-Flux Isotope Reactor at Oak Ridge National 

Laboratory for its high enriched uranium to low enriched uranium conversion and reactor 

vessel upgrade. NCNR staff should develop a formal plan for user access during the 2023 

shutdown as well as a formal plan for user access with the other U.S. neutron facilities. 

Finding: Massive amounts of data and metadata are being generated from new and upgraded 

instruments and from the combination of simultaneous characterization techniques on the same 
50 

sample, overwhelming current data management systems. There is increasing demand for timestamped data, metadata, and data storage utilizing the principles of Findability, Accessibility, 

Interoperability, and Reuse of Digital Assets (FAIR). 

Conclusion: As a standards agency, there is an opportunity for NIST and NCNR to be leaders in 

community efforts to establish standards in data markup and data management utilizing FAIR 

principles at large data rates. 

RECOMMENDATION: The National Institute for Standards and Technology (NIST) Center 

for Neutron Research (NCNR) instrument staff should collaborate with and learn from NIST 

staff outside NCNR who are working on data standards. They should resist the urge to develop 

their own software tools from scratch and ensure that they make use of community efforts in 

image reconstruction and analysis and maintain their good connection to the neutron and X-ray 

imaging community. 

REACTOR 

Key Finding: The NCNR reactor (known as the National Bureau of Standards Reactor, or NSBR) is 

among the oldest operating large research reactors in the world, at more than 50 years of age. The 

current U.S. Nuclear Regulatory Commission (NRC) license will expire in 2029, and a new operating 

license application will be required. There are plans to change the nuclear fuel from high enriched 

uranium (HEU) to low enriched uranium (LEU). When operating an aging nuclear reactor, there are 

known issues that need to be addressed. Unfortunately, there are also unknown aging issues that can 

arise and can be very difficult to address. The design, construction, and licensing of a new research 

reactor will be lengthy and costly, on the order of 10 years and a billion dollars. 

Key Finding: The National Bureau of Standards Test Reactor (NBSR) staff has given some 

consideration to a new reactor concept and a study has been commissioned on the economic impacts 

of reactor-based neutron scattering. The planning process for a new reactor has begun but is moving 

slowly without new funding for a science case and for design of a new reactor tailored for cold 

neutron instruments and using LEU fuel. A long shutdown of NCNR would have a major impact on 

both the U.S. fundamental research effort as well as U.S. industrial competitiveness. 

Key Conclusion: Additional input is warranted from the research community to understand its needs, 

more detailed design concepts, and a more robust cost estimate for the new reactor. It is important to 

have a design that is optimized for LEU fuel and that allows for future modifications because the new 

reactor should operate for 50 years. The opportunity here is to rethink the needs for science with 

neutrons 50 years out for both industry and the U.S. scientific community and to provide that case to 

Congress in order to obtain the funding for a new reactor able to meet those needs. 

KEY RECOMMENDATION: The Director of the National Institute of Standards and 

Technology (NIST) Center for Neutron Research (NCNR) should take a leadership role and 

own this mission with full support of NIST. The Director of NCNR should commission a study 

to define what the research community needs for the next 50 years in addition to the economic 

study already commissioned. In parallel and starting as soon as possible, the Director of NIST 

and the Director of NCNR should be proactive with the Visiting Committee on Advanced 

Technology, the User Group Executive Committee, the local community, the U.S. Nuclear 

Regulatory Commission (NRC), and the appropriate congressional committees to ensure 

support and to build the case for constructing a new research reactor. 
51 

INSTRUMENTATION AND STAFF 

Finding: There is a critical need for the United States to develop a compelling future vision for 

powerful neutron facilities, including reactors to maintain competitiveness with Europe and Asia with 

better resourced and staffed facilities. 

Conclusion: The prolonged shutdown of the NCNR reactor, newer facilities, and better staffing 

abroad may cause leading-edge scientists, both instrument scientists and users, to move to work and 

do their research at the best facilities, not in the United States. 

Finding: Remote use of the instruments by outside users is hampered by NIST firewalls. After the 

restart of operations during COVID-19, only on-site staff and users could perform experiments, with 

samples sent to NCNR. This requires more staff to perform the “remote” experiments. Automation of 

sample environments and experiments are beginning to be realized. 

Conclusion: The future staffing needs and systems that allow automation for instruments will 

increase owing to the likely increase in users wanting to conduct remote experiments. This is 

especially the case for serving the needs of industry, which is important for enabling NIST’s mission. 

RECOMMENDATION: The National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST) Center 

for Neutron Research (NCNR) leadership and staff should continue to work on enhancements 

to systems and/or staffing to serve remote users and to increase automation to better serve the 

user community into the future. The team should consider developing and strengthening its 

connections to university-based engineering research groups with links to industry as a 

mechanism for increased usage of the engineering diffractometer, and potentially as a 

mechanism for support for additional staffing. 

Finding: NCNR has been successful at recruiting and retaining high-quality staff, and this is one of 

the key factors in the good productivity and outsized scientific impact. There is a very successful 

postdoctoral program that is quite diverse and results in a relatively high number of placements into 

academic positions at the end of the postdoctorate. 

Key Finding: The long-term impact of 7 years of flat budgets has caused a reduction of NCNR 

instrument staff by 20 percent, to a level significantly below international standards. 

Key Conclusion: Excellent in-house staff attracts and enables effective partnerships with excellent 

external groups and is essential to world-class scientific output. It is critical to continue to maintain a 

pipeline of such staff (e.g., through Ph.D. and postdoctoral programs) with a broad portfolio of 

instrumentation capacity and capability. 

Key Conclusion: The reduction of instrument staff, already low by international standards, is 

reducing capabilities essential for a world-class user facility and reducing NCNR’s ability to develop 

and continuously upgrade cutting-edge instruments, necessary for a very old reactor to increase 

scientific productivity. Improvements in efficiency and technology developments have reached their 

limits of maximizing the efforts of the current staff over the past 7 years of flat budgets. If this 

continues, it is likely to even more greatly impact staff morale and the scientific productivity of the 

facility. More staff is needed in hardware and especially software to realize the potential of timeresolved studies. 
52 

KEY RECOMMENDATION: The National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST) 

Center for Neutron Research (NCNR) leadership should work with NIST leadership to ensure 

the support of NCNR at the level of staffing it needs to continue to develop upgrades and 

enhancements to instruments to ensure a world-class user facility. 

Finding: NCNR hosts a suite of 30 neutron beam instruments, of which 17 are neutron scattering 

instruments operated by NCNR and 13 are imaging, analytical chemistry, and neutron physics 

instruments operated by the NIST Physical Measurement and Materials Measurement Laboratories. 

Finding: Instruments such as BT-1 and BT-7 are workhorses but are also essential to the delivery of 

very high quality science. There will be a negative impact if these capabilities are lost. 

Finding: The staff and users at NCNR have continued to upgrade and enhance the instrument suite in 

a rolling program, building on their strengths and ensuring that they remain on, or close to, the cutting 

edge of neutron scattering instrumentation. The work is leveraged with additional funding from NSF 

and NIST programs, and NCNR has been successful in being responsive to such opportunities. 

Key Conclusion: The upgrades and continual enhancements to instruments are owing to the 

outstanding quality of NCNR staff, with time to perform its own research and to collaborate on 

science with external users. It is essential for continued success at NCNR that the instrument staff can 

continue to perform its own research, thus attracting and retaining the best staff and users, and that 

this program of upgrades and enhancements is supported as a core part of facility operations to meet 

its mission to the user community. 

Finding: The D2 cold source project is currently on track and well managed. 

Conclusion: The opportunity to have enhanced long-wavelength flux for the cold neutron instruments 

is notable, and with the conversion to LEU now scheduled to occur in 2029 at the earliest, there will 

be a significant period of operations where the user community will benefit from this flux 

enhancement. 

Finding: Several instruments at NCNR are unique in the world or will be world class with continuing 

development, allowing research that can be done nowhere else. These are (1) the Chromatic Analysis 

Neutron Diffractometer or Reflector (CANDoR) instrument, a multiplexed, “white-beam” neutron 

reflectometer that makes use of banks of graphite monochromators, closely coupled with detectors, to 

measure reflectivity curves at multiple wavelengths simultaneously; (2) the Very Small Angle 

Neutron Scattering (vSANS) instrument; (3) the Neutron Interferometric Microscopy-Far Field 

Imaging system conceptual design; and (4) the new capability of time-resolved data acquisition at the 

Multi-Axis Crystal Spectrometer (MACS) enabled by sophisticated complex sample environments. 

Key Finding: Upgrades or planned upgrades to several instruments will bring them to par or nearly 

to par with global counterparts. These are the Neutron Spin Echo Spectrometer (NSE) upgrade and 

the Polarized Large Angle Resolution Spectrometer (PoLAR) secondary continuous-angle multiple 

energy analysis spectrometer for the Spin Polarized Inelastic Neutron Spectrometer (SPINS) 

replacement. 

Finding: Planned upgrades to the BT-8 engineering diffractometer and planned replacement of the 

NG-5, NG-6, and NG-7 beam guides using supermirror optics will represent significant advances. 
53 

SCIENTIFIC OUTPUT 

Finding: NCNR has a vibrant research program that generates about 350 peer-reviewed papers per 

year, with above-average impact in terms of very highly cited papers. In a 2018 citation study by the 

Canadian group Science-Metrix, NCNR appears as the leading neutron facility in terms of average 

relative citations. In this metric, the world average number of citations is 1.0, and 1.2 would be 20 

percent more citations than the average. NCNR scores nearly 2 (1.95) on this scale, with other world 

neutron facilities in the range 1.03 to 1.57 (for the period 2000–2017). The report also points out that 

“The NCNR is ... the only institution examined to have displayed consistently high performances 

across most indicators.” 

Finding: NCNR has world-class scientific standing in soft and hard condensed matter and biology, 

including self-assembling systems and membrane dynamics, topological insulators, and exotic 

superconductivity-magnetic interactions. The neutron science facilities are unique in the brightness of 

the cold flux, the stability of the flux, and the measurement precision, enabling many fundamental 

science measurements beyond the standard model. Industrially relevant measurements and 

characterization in chemical physics and engineering physics include dynamics of polymers, gels, and 

complex fluids, minerals and rocks, materials for energy technologies such as metal organic 

frameworks, catalysts and in situ measurements, and residual stress in industrial materials. The 

development of an instrument is in progress that will simultaneously combine X-ray and neutron 

tomography and will enable nondestructive testing of infrastructure such as concrete. 

Finding: The hard condensed matter program is producing world-class science. World-leading 

spectrometer MACS-II offers unique experimental capability (e.g., event mode measurements 

accessing unique time scales) that is already delivering stellar science with the promise of much more 

to come. 

USERS AND PARTNERSHIPS 

Finding: The NCNR user program continues to enjoy enormous success in terms of productivity, 

scientific impact, and user satisfaction. Publication rates and impacts are high compared to 

international user facilities. The Center for High Resolution Neutron Scattering (CHRNS) is a longstanding impactful NIST-NSF partnership that provides user support, education, and outreach to the 

academic scientific community, and has been renewed for another 5 years. The number of proposals 

to use beamtime were oversubscribed by roughly a factor of 2, and supported users continued to rise 

to roughly 3,000 per year in 2020. 

Finding: NCNR sponsors highly effective partnerships, cooperative agreements, and consortia for 

academia and industry as well as intra- and interagency collaborations. 

Finding: Excellent in-house staff attracts and enables effective partnerships with excellent external 

groups and is essential to world-class scientific output. It is critical to maintain a pipeline of such staff 

(e.g., through Ph.D. programs) and a broad portfolio of instrumentation capacity and capability. 

Conclusion: It would be beneficial for NCNR to consider increasing the number of partnership 

agreements, as long as they are meaningful, to further diversify the academic engagement and 

scientific impact of the center. 
54 

RECOMMENDATION: The National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST) Center 

for Neutron Research (NCNR) should consider developing and strengthening its connections to 

university-based engineering research groups with links to industry as a mechanism for 

increased usage of the engineering diffractometer and other industry-relevant instruments, and 

potentially as a mechanism for support for additional staffing. 

OUTREACH 

Finding: NCNR has been very active in outreach activities. The flagship outreach program is the 

long-running Center for High Resolution Neutron Scattering (CHRNS)-sponsored summer school for 

graduate students and young scientists, which pivoted successfully to fully online in 2020. More than 

30 percent of the attendees are from underrepresented groups, and more than three-quarters of the 

attendees return as users. CHRNS pursues many avenues for engaging researchers from institutions 

that serve diverse groups, including travel support for an additional graduate student as part of the 

beamtime allocated to awarded proposals, outreach, and tours during the year from middle school up 

to high school and summer programs for teachers, high school students, and undergraduates. CHRNS 

will use the opportunity provided by the current increased telework environment to develop a new 

virtual or hybrid activity that will incorporate some of the most successful aspects of the virtual 

summer school. This program, which will have a specific focus on enhancing the diversity of CHRNS 

users, will be started soon. 

Conclusion: NCNR pursues most of the myriad outreach activities through CHRNS, in order to 

recruit underrepresented groups into science, technology, engineering, and mathematics (STEM) 

fields and new neutron scattering users and to assist local schools and communities. 

RECOMMENDATION: Information on the size, underrepresented population served, and 

outcomes of the many training, partnership, and outreach activities per year should be 

provided in the future in order to better assess their impact.
Appendixes

57 

A 

NCNR Instruments 

FIGURE A.1 NCNR overview: 30 experimental beam instruments and experiments. SOURCE: R. 

Dimeo, NIST, 2021, “NCNR Overview,” presentation to the panel, July 21. 

 
58 

B 

Acronyms 

AI/ML artificial intelligence/machine learning 

ANSTO Australian Nuclear Science and Technology Organisation 

BIFROST Not an acronym but a name for an extreme environment spectrometer at ESS 

BTAC Beam-Time Allocation Committee 

CAMEA Continuous Angle Multiple Energy Analysis 

CANDoR Chromatic Analysis Neutron Diffractometer or Reflector 

CHRNS Center for High Resolution Neutron Scattering 

CMP condensed matter physics 

CNII Cold Neutron Imaging Instrument 

DANSE Distributed Data Analysis for Neutron Scattering Experiments 

DARTS Double Axis Residual Stress Texture Single Crystal Spectrometer 

DCS Disk Chopper Spectrometer 

DOE Department of Energy 

DOE EERE Energy Efficiency and Renewable Energy (DOE) 

DOE NP Nuclear Physics (DOE) 

ESS European Spallation Source 

FAIR Findability, Accessibility, Interoperability, and Reuse of Digital Assets 

HEU high enriched uranium 

HFBS High-Flux Backscattering Spectrometer 

HFIR High-Flux Isotope Reactor 

HOF hydrogen-bonded organic framework 

H-Refl Horizontal Sample Reflector 

IF impact factor 

ILL Institut Laue-Langevin 

IMS Innovations in Measurement Science 

LD2 liquid deuterium 

LEU low enriched uranium 

MACS Multi-Axis Crystal Spectrometer 

MAGIK Multi-Angle Grazing Incidence K-Vector 

MD molecular dynamics 
59 

MGI Materials Genome Initiative 

MML Materials Measurement Laboratory (NIST) 

MOF microporous organic framework 

MSRI Mid-Scale Research Infrastructure Program (NSF) 

NBS National Bureau of Standards 

NBSR National Bureau of Standards Reactor 

NCNR NIST Center for Neutron Research 

NeXT Neutron and X-Ray Tomography 

NG-5, 6, 7 Neutron Guides 5, 6, and 7 

NIST National Institute of Standards and Technology 

NPG Neutron Physics Group 

NRC Nuclear Regulatory Commission 

NRU National Research Universal Reactor 

NSE Neutron Spin-Echo Spectrometer 

NSF National Science Foundation 

NPG Neutron Physics Group 

nSoft Not an acronym but the name of an industrial consortium to deliver neutron scattering 

technology and expertise to industry in the development and manufacture of soft matter 

PBR Polarized Beam Reflectometer 

PhAND Photon Assisted Neutron Detector 

PML Physical Measurement Laboratory 

PoLAR Polarized Large Angle Resolution Spectrometer 

PSI Paul Scherrer Institute, Switzerland 

R&D research and development 

RITA Not an acronym but the name of the triple axis spectrometer for cold neutrons at PSI 

RIXS Resonant Inelastic X-Ray Scattering 

SANS Small-Angle Neutron Scattering 

SAS Small-Angle Scattering 

SASSIE Not an acronym but the name of a program suite of atomistic models of molecular 

systems to compare directly with experimental data 

SASView Visualization software in SASSIE 

SAXS Small-Angle X-Ray Scattering 

SHIP Summer High School Internship Program 

SMM single molecule magnet 

SNS Spallation Neutron Source 

SPINS Spin Polarized Inelastic Neutron Spectrometer 

SRM Standard Reference Material 

STEM science, technology, engineering, and mathematics 

TAS Triple Axis Spectrometer 

TISANE time-involved small-angle experiment 

uSANS Ultra Small Angle Neutron Scattering 

vSANS Very Small Angle Neutron Scattering 

XSAS X-Ray Small-Angle Scattering
60 

C 

Prominent Journals with Articles by NCNR Researchers 

ACS Applied Materials and Interfaces (publications = 9, impact factor [IF] = 8.758) 

ACS Catalysis (publications = 1, IF = 12.35) 

ACS Central Science (publications = 2, IF = 12.685) 

ACS Nano (publications = 2, IF = 14.588) 

Advanced Energy Materials (publications = 1, IF = 25.245) 

Advanced Functional Materials (publications = 2, IF = 16.836) 

Advanced Materials (publications = 4, IF = 27.398) 

Angewandte Chemie—International Edition (publications = 4, IF = 12.959) 

Applied Catalysis B—Environmental (publications = 1, IF = 16.683) 

Chem (publications = 2, IF = 19.735) 

Chemical Engineering Journal (publications = 1, IF = 10.652) 

Chemical Science (publications = 1, IF = 9.346) 

Chemical Society Reviews (publications = 1, IF = 42.846) 

Chemistry of Materials (publications = 10, IF = 9.567) 

Coordination Chemistry Reviews (publications = 2, IF = 15.367) 

Energy and Environmental Science (publications = 1, IF = 30.289) 

Energy Conversion and Management (publications = 1, IF = 8.208) 

Energy Storage Materials (publications = 2, IF = 16.28) 

Journal of Materials Chemistry A (publications = 6, IF = 11.301) 

Journal of Power Sources (publications = 2, IF = 8.247) 

Journal of the American Chemical Society (publications = 14, IF = 14.612) 

Materials Horizons (publications = 2, IF = 12.319) 

Materials Today Physics (publications = 2, IF = 10.443) 

Nano Energy (publications = 1, IF = 16.602) 

Nano Letters (publications = 3, IF = 11.238) 

Nature (publications = 2, IF = 42.779) 

Nature Chemistry (publications = 2, IF = 21.687) 

Nature Communications (publications = 11, IF = 12.121) 

Nature Energy (publications = 2, IF = 46.495) 

Nature Materials (publications = 5, IF = 38.663) 

Nature Nanotechnology (publications = 2, IF = 31.538) 

Nature Physics (publications = 5, IF = 19.256) 

Nature Review Materials (publications = 1, IF = 71.189) 

Physics Letters X (publications = 3, IF = 12.577) 

Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences (publications = 8, IF = 9.412) 

Science (publications = 5, IF = 41.846) 

Science Advances (publications = 8, IF = 13.117) 
61 

D 

Citations of Papers by NCNR Researchers 

2020 

Materials for Hydrogen-Based Energy Storage—Past, Recent Progress, and Future Outlook 

Hirscher, M., V.A. Yartys, M. Baricco, J. Bellosta von Colbe, D. Blanchard, R.C. Bowman Jr., D.P. 

Broom, et al., Journal of Alloys and Compounds, 827:153548. 

 Citations = 185 

Balancing Volumetric and Gravimetric Uptake in Highly Porous Materials for Clean Energy 

Chen, Z., P. Li, R. Anderson, X. Wang, X. Zhang, L. Robison, L.R. Redfern, et al., Science, 

368(6488):297. 

 Citations = 132 

Microporous Metal-Organic Framework Materials for Gas Separation 

Lin, R.-B., S. Xiang, W. Zhou, and B. Chen, Chem, 6(2):337. 

 Citations = 111 

Mixed Metal-Organic Framework with Multiple Binding Sites for Efficient C2H2/CO2 Separation 

J. Gao, X. Qian, R.-B. Lin, R. Krishna, H. Wu, W. Zhou, and B. Chen, Angewandte Chemie—

International Edition, 59(11):4396. 

 Citations = 100 

Enhanced Photocatalytic Hydrogen Evolution from Organic Semiconductor Heterojunction Nanoparticles 

Kosco, J., M. Bidwell, H. Cha, T. Martin, C.T. Howells, M. Sachs, D.H. Anjum, et al., Nature Materials, 

19(5):559. 

 Citations = 83 

Efficient and Tunable One-Dimensional Charge Transport in Layered Lanthanide Metal-Organic 

Frameworks 

Skorupskii, G., B.A. Trump, T.W. Kasel, C.M. Brown, C.H. Hendon, and M. Dincă, Nature Chemistry, 

12(2):131. 

 Citations = 78 

Selective Ethane/Ethylene Separation in a Robust Microporous Hydrogen-Bonded Organic Framework 

Zhang, X., L. Li, J.-X. Wang, H.-M. Wen, R. Krishna, H. Wu, W. Zhou, et al., Journal of the American 

Chemical Society, 142(1):633. 

 Citations = 40 
62 

Point Defects, Compositional Fluctuations, and Secondary Phases in Non-Stoichiometric Kesterites 

Schorr, S., G. Gurieva, M. Guc, M. Dimitrievska, A. Pérez-Rodríguez, V. Izquierdo-Roca, C.S. Schnohr, 

et al., Journal of Physics: Energy, 2(1):012002. 

 Citations = 38 

Engineering Microporous Ethane-Trapping Metal-Organic Frameworks for Boosting Ethane/Ethylene 

Separation 

Pei, J., J.-X. Wang, K. Shao, Y. Yang, Y. Cui, H. Wu, W. Zhou, et al., Journal of Materials Chemistry A, 

8(7):3613. 

 Citations = 30 

2019 

High Electronic Conductivity as the Origin of Lithium Dendrite Formation Within Solid Electrolytes 

Han, F., A.S. Westover, J. Yue, X. Fan, F. Wang, M. Chi, D.N. Leonard, et al., Nature Energy, 4:187. 

 Citations = 473 

Exploration of Porous Metal-Organic Frameworks for Gas Separation and Purification 

Lin, R.-B., S. Xiang, H. Xing, W. Zhou, and B. Chen, Coordination Chemistry Reviews, 378:87. 

 Citations = 299 

Multifunctional Porous Hydrogen-Bonded Organic Framework Materials 

Lin, R.-B., Y. He, P. Li, H. Wang, W. Zhou, and B. Chen, Chemical Society Reviews, 48(5):1362. 

 Citations = 242 

Nearly Ferromagnetic Spin-Triplet Superconductivity 

Ran, S., C. Eckberg, Q.-P. Ding, Y. Furukawa, T. Metz, S.R. Saha, I.L. Liu, et al., Science,

365(6454):684. 

 Citations = 167 

Influences from Solvents on Charge Storage in Titanium Carbide MXenes 

Wang, X., T.S. Mathis, K. Li, Z. Lin, L. Vlcek, T. Torita, N.C. Osti, et al., Nature Energy, 4:241. 

 Citations = 160 

Tunable Titanium Metal-Organic Frameworks with Infinite 1D Ti-O Rods for Efficient Visible-LightDriven Photocatalytic H2 Evolution 

Li, C., H. Xu, J. Gao, W. Du, L. Shangguan, X. Zhang, R.- B. Lin, et al., Journal of Materials Chemistry 

A, 7(19):11928. 

 Citations = 131 

Pore Space Partition Within a Metal-Organic Framework for Highly Efficient C2H2/CO2 Separation 

Ye, Y., Z. Ma, R.-B. Lin, R. Krishna, W. Zhou, Q. Lin, Z. Zhang, et al., Journal of the American 

Chemical Society, 141(9):4130. 

 Citations = 127 

 
63 

Cellulose Ionic Conductors with High Differential Thermal Voltage for Low-Grade Heat Harvesting 

Li, T., X. Zhang, S.D. Lacey, R. Mi, X. Zhao, F. Jiang, J. Song, et al., Nature Materials, 18:608. 

 Citations = 105 

Enhanced Gas Uptake in a Microporous Metal-Organic Framework via a Sorbate Induced-Fit Mechanism 

Yu, M.-H., B. Space, D. Franz, W. Zhou, C. He, L. Li, R. Krishna, et al., Journal of the American 

Chemical Society, 141(44):17703. 

 Citations = 56 

2018 

Highly Reversible Zinc Metal Anode for Aqueous Batteries 

Wang, F., O. Borodin, T. Gao, X. Fan, W. Sun, F. Han, A. Faraone, et al., Nature Materials, 17(6):543. 

 Citations = 701 

Ethane/Ethylene Separation in a Metal-Organic Framework with Iron-Peroxo Sites 

Li, L., R.-B. Lin, R. Krishna, H. Li, S. Xiang, H. Wu, J. Li, et al., Science, 362:443. 

 Citations = 332 

Molecular Sieving of Ethylene from Ethane Using a Rigid Metal-Organic Framework 

Lin, R.-B., L. Li, H.-L. Zhou, H. Wu, C. He, S. Li, R. Krishna, et al., Nature Materials, 17:1128. 

 Citations = 240 

Porous Metal-Organic Frameworks for Fuel Storage 

He, Y., F. Chen, B. Li, G. Qian, W. Zhou, and B. Chen, Coordination Chemistry Reviews, 373:167. 

 Citations = 147 

Beyond Catalysis and Membranes: Visualizing and Solving the Challenge of Electrode Water 

Accumulation and Flooding in AEMFCs 

Omasta, T.J., A.M. Park, J.M. LaManna, Y. Zhang, X. Peng, L. Wang, D.L. Jacobson, et al., Energy and 

Environmental Science, 11(3):551. 

 Citations = 145 

Topological Spin Excitations in Honeycomb Ferromagnet CrI3

Chen, L., J.-H. Chung, B. Gao, T. Chen, M.B. Stone, A.I. Kolesnikov, Q. Huang, and P. Dai, Physical 

Review X, 8(4):041028. 

 Citations = 141 

Boosting Ethane/Ethylene Separation Within Isoreticular Ultramicroporous Metal-Organic Frameworks 

Lin, R.-B., H. Wu, L. Li, X.-L. Tang, Z. Li, J. Gao, H. Cui, et al., Journal of the American Chemical 

Society, 140(40):12940. 

 Citations = 138