The Nanoscale-Ordered Materials Diffractometer
Inside the NOMAD detector tank.
NOMAD is a high-flux, medium-resolution diffractometer that uses a large bandwidth of neutron energies and extensive detector coverage to carry out structural determinations of local order in crystalline and amorphous materials. It enables studies of a large variety of samples ranging from liquids, solutions, glasses, polymers, and nanocrystalline materials to long-range-ordered crystals. The enhanced neutron flux at SNS, coupled with the advanced neutron optics and detector features of NOMAD, allows for unprecedented access to high-resolution pair distribution functions, small-contrast isotope substitution experiments, small sample sizes, and parametric studies.
NOMAD schematic.
Applications
- Environmental (e.g., solvent) effects on and direction of nanoscale structure formation
- In situ structural changes in nanoscale oxide catalysts used in automobile catalytic converters
- Structure of hydrogen storage materials under in situ conditions
- Transient structures of materials under extreme conditions (e.g., at high temperature or high pressure under the influence of transient fields or in metastable states)
