When used to penetrate materials, neutrons reveal structural and dynamic properties that can provide scientists with a better understanding of the physics that control the material's behavior. This understanding can help scientists develop new materials with improved properties. Unlike X-rays and other forms of light, neutrons penetrate both the aluminum cell and the ice crystals, providing a series of snapshots as the ice restructured itself around the carbon dioxide molecules. The data hint at the mechanism by which the water molecules arrange themselves around the carbon dioxide molecules. Future projects include varying the ice grain size, pressures and type of gas molecules.
Preliminary tests are underway with argon.
This gas hydrate research is one example of the work being performed at the IPNS, the U.S. Department of Energy's most reliable source of neutrons for studying the atomic arrangements and motions in liquids and solids. It has been used for more than 5,000 experiments since opening in 1981, and scientists request more than double the time the IPNS has available for experiments. The IPNS has more users, more instruments, more experienced staff members and is the site of more experiments than any other pulsed neutron source in the nation. The first spallation source for neutron scattering was built here by Jack Carpenter and others in the mid-seventies. Scientists will use the SNS to study problems in chemistry, engineering, magnetism, superconductivity, crystalline materials, structural biology, polymers, disordered materials and complex fluids.