I’m part of a multi-disciplinary team that run the Wombat instrument at the Australian Centre for Neutron Scattering.

Wombat is the high intensity neutron diffractometer in operation at the Australian Centre for Neutron Scattering. While primarily used as a high-speed powder diffractometer, the high-performance area detector allows both texture characterisation and single-crystal measurements. Wombat is particularly optimised for the study of materials in situ and in operando using the wide range of sample environment available at the centre. Over 17 years of operation, Wombat has been used to explore a broad range of materials, including: novel hydrogen-storage materials, negative-thermal-expansion materials, cryogenic minerals, piezoelectrics, high performance battery anodes and cathodes, high strength alloys, multiferroics, superconductors and novel magnetic materials.

The instrument is affectionately known as ‘Wombat’ because it has a lot of grunt, and has fat diffraction peaks. You can find out everything you need to know about Wombat in our instrument paper.