D11 was conceived and designed by Konrad Ibel, Werner Schmatz and Tasso Springer and became operational in 1972 shortly after ILL’s first neutron beams became available. Soon after a high angle data bank (D11B) was added by Gernot Kostorz for studying diffuse scattering. The first few years were devoted to many pioneering experiments in the fields of polymers, materials, metallurgy as well as...
Following a period of strong development of the contrast variation method using H2O/D2O exchange on physical-chemical and readily available soluble protein samples,D11 hosted a number of challenging experiments in biology—in particular on protein-nucleic acid interactions. Important results were obtained on the inner structures of plant viruses, ribosomes and chromatin. A study of...
It was in September 1972 when Konrad Ibel and myself put a solution of sperm whale myoglobin into the sample chamber of D11. To our great surprise it was after a few seconds of irradiation by thermal neutrons – I think the A-selector was not yet in place – when a beautiful central peak of scattered neutron intensity emerged on the screen, the first picture of neutron small-angle scattering...
We will recap published and unpublished work initiated on D11, D17 and D1B with J.B. Hayter: what happens at low-q and high-q for common and uncommon ionic micelles made from self-assembled amphiphiles in a given solvent?
In the standard SAS range, the Hayter-Penfold decoupling procedure work well for all ionic micelles investigated as long as the chain length is not too short or too...
Wood is an abundant biological material with various technical applications ranging from sustainable building materials to advanced functional materials made of nanocelluloses. The structure of wood cell walls is hierarchical, consisting of well-oriented, elongated units from the molecular level to the macroscale. Our picture of the complex composite-like structure of wood cell walls and its...
Soon after the advent of High-Tc superconductors, it became clear that that important information could be obtained by observing the lattice of quantised flux lines in these and other unconventional and conventional superconductors. This meant that SANS scattering patterns contained Bragg peaks had to be analysed. I will compare the state of the art of early experiments with what is available...
The small-angle instruments at ILL have been instrumental for our soft matter research during the last 30 years. I will illustrate this with a number of research projects where SANS has been key in elucidating structural properties of various soft matter systems, covering diverse topics such as the formation of polymerlike micelles, the kinetics of the micelle-to-vesicle transition, gel...
Adding nanoparticles (NPs) to polymer solution or melt is an efficient strategy to improve the macroscopic polymer behavior (viscosity, mechanical reinforcement…) and design hybrid macromolecular materials with enhanced properties. Among the vast literature dealing with NPs and polymer, one fundamental question arises: do NPs modify the global and local polymer chain conformation? Such issue...
Small angle scattering is a really useful technique to understand the self-assembly of a range of N-functionalised dipeptides. These form micellar structures at high pH and gels at low pH. Gels with different properties can be formed by controlling the micellar species present prior to gelation, for example by changing the counter-ion, by the addition of salts or by a heat-cool cycle. To...
A magnetic field is one of the many tools that we can use to tune or adjust materials. In some cases, this is through the very direct coupling to atomic magnetic moments, giving rise to new structures. In other cases, the interaction is on the microscopic scale, for example, the rotation or growth of magnetic domains over a wide range of length scales. Some materials do not have direct...
The interface between rock matrix and pore space in sedimentary rocks is rough over seven orders of magnitude of the linear scale, from sub-nanometers (nearly molecular) to centimeters. Since the early 1980's, pore-matrix roughness has often been described using the framework of Mandelbrot's fractal geometry and the corresponding mathematical formalism for correlation functions; this...
Artefacts of interest in cultural heritage (CH) are often rare, precious, manifolds and complexes and their secrets are difficult to disclose.
The D11 instrument at Institut Laue Langevin (ILL) is a very unique instrument to investigate CH samples and their history. D11 uses: neutrons that are a no-destructive probe and the small angle neutron scattering (SANS) technique covering four decades...
To use the minimum q of a SANS instrument we require the longest collimation and detector distances combined with the longest wavelength. This combination maximizes how much gravity curves the neutron beam and how much the beam is spread due to the range of wavelengths. D11 is the only gravity limited SANS instrument in the world where at minimum q gravity prevents any transmission through the...
Self-assembled systems are generally highly dynamic structures characterized by molecular exchange, fluctuations and fusion/fission and morphological transitions. Examples include micelles formed by synthetic surfactants and block copolymers as well as lipid membranes. Despite their importance in technological and biomedical applications, the kinetic pathways associated with the formation and...
With regard to the increasing need for sustainable energy, developing strategies to exploit solar energy become more and more important. Inspired by natural systems it is highly promising to self-assemble building blocks into functional supramolecular units.
Electrostatic self-assembly leads to nanoscale shapes ranging from spheres and cylinders over vesicles to networks. Key to a targeted...
Dendrimers are synthetic macromolecules having a defined architecture. Starting from a trifunctional monomer (generation 0), subsequent generations are connected to this initial core from which in a treelike structure results. Small-angle neutron scattering (SANS) has been extremely useful for the characterization of these molecules since it allows us to change the contrast through mixtures of...
Motivated by the patented idea of using scCO2-microemulsions as a starting material for the production of polymer nanofoams [1], we developed a new high-pressure cell together with Ralf Schweins and Peter Lindner in 2006. We were able to demonstrate its functionality in a first test SANS experiment at D11 in March 2007. In this and a series follow-up experiments we could show that...
Linking polysaccharides and polypeptides together leads to fully biocompatible copolymers with unique properties for healthcare applications: not only they are fully biodegradable, but also they offer specific recognition and docking properties to membrane receptors of biological cells. Moreover, the two blocks can respond to external stimuli, such as pH, temperature, or the presence of...
Protein solutions can exhibit rather complex behavior, in particular at high concentrations, i.e. "crowding" conditions.
For a comprehensive understanding of the structures,
from the molecular level to oligomers to larger-scale structures arising, e.g., in phase separating systems,
small-angle scattering plays a crucial role. This is also the basis for the interpretation of the associated...
Deep eutectic solvents (DES) are promising novel solvents obtained through the complexation of a halide salt such as choline chloride with a hydrogen bond donor such as urea or glycerol, enabling them to be tuned for particular properties, including low toxicity and sustainability. They are of increasing interest to replace organic solvents in applications from synthesis to pharmaceutical...
Surfactant self-assembly is an important phenomenon in a wide range of processes and applications. SANS has played a central and key role in developing our understanding of surfactant self-assembly. From the early 1980’s D11 has been the leading and pioneering SANS instrument for such studies. Three key issues from some the early studies on D11, associated with micelle models, the...
Nanosuspensions are sub-micron-sized colloidal dispersions of nano-sized drug particles stabilised by surfactant and/or polymer. Nanosuspensions are of considerable interest as a means of solving the problems of poor water solubility and low bioavailability exhibited by many drugs, and which pose significant challenges for the preparation of a medicine for patient use. Despite the fact that...
I will try to tell you a story about our hour after hour life – with mixture of stress and pleasure to be by the side of this beautiful leading machine, building a special relationship as D11 co-users, with different colleagues along my career. It actually started here!
This should cover different science cases, where D11 was useful in different ways: polymer gels, stretched...
The striking difference in the scattering length density of H and D offers a chance to vary or tune the neutron scattering contrast of selected components in complex systems while retaining the chemistry of the systems. Such contrast variation in turn provides unique opportunities for structural analysis in the field of Soft Matter not accessible to other scattering techniques like for...
Quasicrystals are a peculiar state of order, which is fundamentally different from classical ordered crystalline states. Discovered in 1982 for MnAl-alloys, it has since then been found for more than 100 different metal alloys.
In a 2009 D11 summer nightshift we discovered a micellar phase showing an unusual SANS-pattern with 12-fold rotational symmetry. When published in 2011, it was the...
Being among the first users of D11, I will give during my talk an outlook of the topics I investigated with this SANS camera. My first use of D11 dates back to Mai 1975 for studying the chain conformation in a crystalline polymer, namely isotactic polystyrene (iPS). Unlike polyethylene, that was studied simultaneously by other group of scientists, iPS did not display any isotopic segregation...
I will try to tell you a story about our hour after hour life – with mixture of stress and pleasure to be by the side of this beautiful leading machine, building a special relationship as D11 co-users, with different colleagues along my career. It actually started here!
This should cover different science cases, where D11 was useful in different ways: polymer gels, stretched...
Protein solutions can exhibit rather complex behavior, in particular at
high concentrations, i.e. "crowding" conditions. For a comprehesive understanding of the structures,from the molecular level to oligomers to larger-scale structures arising, e.g., in phase separating systems,small-angle scattering plays a crucial role. This is also the basis for the interpretation of the associated...
In quantum materials, interactions between unpaired electrons can lead to the formation of complex magnetization textures, that themselves generate novel quantum effects ripe for exploitation in applications. When the periodicity of these textures are incommensurate with the host crystal lattice, SANS can play the key role in both their observation, and the efficient characterization of their...
