Stephen Hall leads ESS in-kind project to support the development and commissioning of the ODIN instrument at ESS
Stephen Hall, former LINXS Director, is leading an ESS in-kind project to support the development and commissioning of the ODIN instrument at ESS. The project is one of four in-kind projects approved by the Swedish Research Council in 2022. They are part of the Swedish contribution to ESS and comprise, for example, technical equipment or personnel, from Swedish universities to ESS.
Stephen Hall, senior lecturer at Solid Mechanics at Lund University, and former LINXS Director.
ODIN, which will be one of the first instruments at ESS to open to users, is a multi-purpose imaging instrument providing world-leading neutron imaging. It will provide new opportunities in terms of high spatial and temporal resolution and wavelength-dependent imaging, giving access to new details about material properties and processes. It will also provide coupled X-ray imaging through the installation of an X-ray tube source in the neutron beamline, which is being supported by funding from a Röntgen-Ångström cluster project collaboration between Stephen Hall, at Lund University, and partners from Uppsala University, Helmholtz Zentrum Berlin, the University of Münster and ESS.
– It is great to be part of the development of ODIN. By supporting the commissioning, we can make sure that the instrument is ready to perform, well in time for the user programme, and provide input from a user perspective, says Stephen Hall, senior lecturer at Solid Mechanics at Lund University.
Verifying all parts of ODIN and checking sample environments
The project involves a commissioning scientist who will work at ODIN, with the ESS scientists, in the final stages of the beamline development. This will include running experiments using the X-ray source in advance of having neutrons to enable verification that all parts are working as they should, including sample environments and data analysis.
– There is a great team behind ODIN at the ESS and it will be great to be part of this and be involved in contributing to the first science at ODIN.
– The possibilities for analysing materials with ODIN are exciting. We will be able to see microstructures, compositions and properties in 3D, as well as investigate, with 4D imaging, how materials behave as they evolve under different environmental conditions. Being part of this right from the start, as the first data sets are acquired, will be pretty amazing from a researcher’s perspective, says Stephen Hall.
The project starts in late 2023 and will continue through to 2026, by which time ODIN will be up and running.