Australian Nuclear Science and Technology Organization (ANSTO) successfully operates one Small Angle Neutron Scattering instrument QUOKKA and in January of year 2016 commenced user operation of the second SANS instrument, BILBY [1]. The Bilby is the utilizing both, Time-of-Flight (ToF) and monochromatic capabilities.
The design (in particular, set-up of four choppers which uses idea of that for D33 instrument [2] at ILL) opens possibility to vary wavelength resolution in the wide range (from 4% to 30%). Two arrays of position sensitive detectors in combination with utilizing of wide wavelength range (from ~3Å to ~18Å) provide capability to collect scattering data of wide angular range without changing experimental set-up (the most common settings used by now allow simultaneous data collection in the range between 1·10-3 Å-1¸ 0.6Å-1, with the highest accessible angle ~1.8Å-1). Offered instrument design opens possibility to collect scattering from a wide range of samples, with a unique capability to record fast kinetics data.
The presentation will be focused on general concept and unique features of the new SANS instrument, as well as results of instrument commissioning and operation, specifically in application to biological systems. Data reduction concept implemented in Mantid software [3] will be presented. Also, some specific features in utilizing ToF mode comparing to monochromatic set-up for softmatter samples will be discussed.