YESSS Members Tour Spallation Neutron Source (SNS) and Supercomputers

YESSS members recently toured several ORNL facilities to learn more about research at the lab and how to submit user proposals for time on the instruments.

Sabornie Chatterjee and Candice Halbert organized the Spallation Neutron Source (SNS) tour on April 5, 2013. John Ackner, instrument scientist for the liquids reflectometer - beam line 4B, led the group on a tour of the neutron beam line areas. For those who couldn't make the tour but may be interested in more information about the SNS user program, you can visit the SNS website at http://neutrons.ornl.gov to learn about submitting a proposal.

John suggests that the first step in the proposal process is to directly contact an instrument scientist on the beam line of interest to discuss your idea for use of the instrumentation. He states that it can save a lot of time and resources to first evaluate whether neutron scattering is even feasible for your sample. The list of instrument scientists and a description of each beam line/instrument can be found at the SNS website.

Maria Fernanda Campa organized the supercomputer tour on May 24, 2013. Dwayne John, NICS user support technician, presented an overview of the supercomputing capabilities at ORNL. Dwayne encourages all researchers to put in a user proposal through the National Institute for Computational Sciences (NICS) because most proposals are accepted with a quick turn around time. More information about supercomputing resources through NICS at http://www.nics.tennessee.edu.

Thanks to the tour organizers and tour guides for taking time to plan these events! If you have suggestions for future tours, please contact the Publicity Committee.