New Chairman of the Jülich Board of Directors visited JCNS at MLZ

Visit Prof. Marquardt Visiting the neutron guide hall (from left): Dirk Schlotmann, Head of the JCNS Technical Services and Administration, Prof. Dieter Richter, Scientific Director of the JCNS, Prof. Wolfgang Marquardt, Chairman of the Board of Directors of Forschungszentrum Jülich since 1 July 2014, Dr. Alexander Ioffe, Head of the JCNS Outstation at the MLZ. © R. Bucher / FRM II, TUM

Visiting the neutron guide hall (from left): Dirk Schlotmann, Head of the JCNS Technical Services and Administration, Prof. Dieter Richter, Scientific Director of the JCNS, Prof. Wolfgang Marquardt, Chairman of the Board of Directors of Forschungszentrum Jülich since 1 July 2014, Dr. Alexander Ioffe, Head of the JCNS Outstation at the MLZ. © R. Bucher / FRM II, TUM

The visit coincided with the intensive preparation phase before the next measuring cycle. Based on the organizational chart of the MLZ, the Scientific Director of the JCNS, Prof. Dieter Richter elucidated the contributions and services of the different partners within MLZ. Dr. Ina Lommatzsch from the MLZ User Office explained Prof. Marquardt how based on a brilliant scientific idea a proposal evolves which then, after successfully passing the review by the referees, leads to an experiment at one of the neutron scattering instruments. The User Office is taking care of about 1000 visits of the scientists arriving from countries all over the world.

A guided tour through the neutron guide halls and the experimental hall to the neutron scattering instruments of JCNS, which are partly built and operated in cooperation with the Technische Universität München and the RWTH Aachen University, formed the 2nd part of the visit. At the diffuse scattering neutron time of flight spectrometer DNS, the close collaboration between JCNS and the Central Institute for Engineering, Electronics and Analytics (ZEA) of Forschungszentrum Jülich became evident : Engineers and technical staff of ZEA-1, G-ELI and JCNS were busy installing new components at DNS, which are expected to result in a considerable improvement of the instrument performance for the benefit of the scientific user. Short poster presentations of the functionality and the scientific challenges given by instrument scientists and post-docs summarized the capabilities of the instruments and the offered scientific opportunities. Finally, Prof. Dieter Richter summed up: “I believe that we succeeded to demonstrate the significance of neutron research in addressing actual scientific challenges to Prof. Marquardt as well as the effort which is needed to fulfill this mission and the commitment of the team at MLZ to enable excellent science by using excellent instrumentation.”