Responsible for the facility

Main research areas

Measurements of the texture in samples of structural materials, as well as in geological and biological samples

Facility layout

Main view of facility

Sample environment

Description of SKAT

The SKAT facility was designed for the measurement of the crystallographic texture that is an ensemble of polycrystal grain orientations. Interest in the research of crystallographic textures relates, on the one hand, to the fact that the texture occurs during the production and increase of polycrystals and on the other hand, to the fact that the texture determines the anisotropy of the physical properties of materials. Traditionally, textures are measured using X-ray diffraction. However, for coarse-grained rock samples, structural materials and biological objects with grain sizes on the order of several millimeters, the use of neutron diffraction is the only way to provide the grain statistics required for quantitative texture analysis. This is due to the greater penetrating power of thermal neutrons compared to X-rays.

The SKAT neutron diffractometer consists of a neutron beam chopper, an evacuated neutron guide, a beam collimation system and a ring detector system consisting of 19 detectors. Detector-collimator complexes are installed on a Debye-Scherrer cone around the incident beam at a scattering angle 2θ = 90°. In addition, it is possible to measure at other scattering angles 2θ = 65° and 2θ = 135°. Measurements at the same scattering angles lead to the same position of the same diffraction peaks for all detectors, so there is no need to introduce λ- and θ-corrections. The detector system, positioned at a scattering angle of 2θ = 90°, allows to carry out texture measurements with high resolution in the range of interplanar distances up to d_max = 5.0 Å. The goniometer angle of 45° is optimal for installation of the equipment for in situ experiments.