The stunningly beautiful data from the first few weeks of operation demonstrates the full power of the MAPS position sensitive detector. The 16 m 2 detector array is divided into some 150,000 individual pixels generating 500 Mbytes of data per measurement. Powerful visualisation and analysis software provides experimenters with the unprecedented freedom to optimise the instrument resolution for each experiment by grouping individual pixels together. This is almost as though the instrument can be 'reconstructed' for every new measurement, and furthermore this can continue even after data collection has ceased. A single crystal mosaic of CuGeO 3 .
Great effort is spent in growing and assembling such complex arrays of delicate crystals.
In the first period of operation MAPS has already revealed new excitations in a previously well studied material, demonstrating that novel instrumentation almost always leads to new scientific avenues and opportunities. The new generation of instruments typified by MAPS demonstrates that instrument performance is no longer necessarily defined by the quantity of neutrons, but also by the progress in technology incorporated into the designs. Technological advances are driving neutron instrumentation forward, allowing the collection, manipulation and visualisation of the data produced by such instruments to proceed in ever more imaginative and complex ways. The future looks promising indeed. Chris Frost in front of the vast 16m 2 MAPS position sensitive detector array, developed at ISIS by Julian Norris, Nigel Rhodes and colleagues.