Time-of-flight diffraction with multiple pulse overlap. Part I: The concept

The concept of a novel type of time-of-flight diffractometer for continuous neutron sources is presented. The method is based on multiple overlapping neutron pulses and allows a tuning of the instrument to high intensity and high resolution simultaneously. The dependence of the time of flight of the neutrons on the scattering angle in combination with the different intervals between successive neutron pulses are used as extra parameters for the analysis of the frame-overlap data. The instrument concept is most suitable for strain-scanning applications where high resolution in lattice spacing is necessary although the total number of Bragg reflections is quite low.