International
Tables for
Crystallography
Volume G
Definition and exchange of crystallographic data
Edited by S. R. Hall and B. McMahon

International Tables for Crystallography (2006). Vol. G. ch. 3.3, p. 127

Section 3.3.8.5. Neutron time-of-flight detection

B. H. Tobya*

a NIST Center for Neutron Research, National Institute of Standards and Technology, Gaithersburg, Maryland 20899-8562, USA
Correspondence e-mail: brian.toby@nist.gov

3.3.8.5. Neutron time-of-flight detection

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Neutron time-of-flight (TOF) detection in theory should be no different from energy-dispersive X-ray detection, but TOF instruments record complex three-dimensional data structures, where diffraction intensities are recorded as a function of time for as many as several hundred detectors. For some instruments, both the position along the detector and the time of flight are recorded, so there may be effectively thousands of detectors. To add even further complexity, the data may be binned in different time steps for detectors at different [2\theta] values. CIF is likely to be cumbersome for the storage of unprocessed measurements from TOF instruments, owing to the one-dimensional nature of CIF, but it could be useful to translate files from one binary format to another using CIF as a common intermediate. To do this, a single loop is used for all data points, where each detector (or detector section, in the case of a position-sensitive detector) is assigned a detector ID. In a second loop, the detector ID values are defined. In addition to [2\theta], _pd_meas_angle_omega and _pd_meas_angle_chi are defined where needed (Example 3.3.8.5[link]).

Example 3.3.8.5. Measurements from a neutron time-of-flight diffraction experiment.

[Scheme scheme34]

TOF data are usually reduced to a small number of `banks' consisting of intensity as a function of d space or Q, where multiple detectors are summed. Data in this form can be recorded using a loop containing _pd_proc_d_spacing and _pd_proc_intensity_net. A data block is needed for each bank.








































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