Neutron Data Booklet

T o make freely available a small pocketbook that covers the wide field of neutron scattering, is clearly an idea which was timely. The first edition of 5000 copies was absorbed by the growing neutron community worldwide within a few months of being published. The obvious need for a second edition has allowed certain corrections to be made to the first edition – inevitable given the speed with which it was written and printed – and to rectify some omissions – notably a new chapter on diffraction methods on continuous sources by Alan Hewat and Garry McIntyre. I want to thank Christian Vettier, ILL's Science Director, who is at the origin of this project and the two editors Gerry Lander from Kalsruhe and José Dianoux from Grenoble who have energetically pursued and implemented the idea, and of course the authors who have once again responded admirably to a tight deadline. W elcome to the Neutron Data Booklet. The success of the X-ray and Nuclear Physics Booklets, and the ever-increasing number of neutron users, has led the ILL in collaboration with Old City Publishing, to compile this "little book of facts." We are first grateful to Christian Vettier of the ILL who persuaded us to undertake this task and helped in many ways in getting people to cooperate. We thank all those who contributed most sincerely; we realise that this is not a research document, and therefore lacking in real excitement. On the other hand, we hope they (and you the reader) will find it above all "useful" and get to feel that having one in your pocket is part of the dress code for a practicing neutron scatterer. Our thanks to the secretarial help at the ILL, who are listed. They gainfully struggled over tables to format and kept their cool. Although this document was produced at the ILL, we recognise the importance of spallation neutrons, and we hope you will find all you need about neutrons in general in the pages. The editors would like to be informed of both errors and omissions so that these may be corrected in future editions and for when the information is loaded onto the web. In particular, suggestions for further tables or chapters will be warmly received, especially if they are accompanied by a "volunteer author"! Finally, thanks to Ian Mellanby and Guy Griffiths of Old City Publishing for following through with …