A New Frontier: High-pressure Neutron Science on TOSCA

Abstract

The TOSCA neutron spectrometer at the ISIS Pulsed Neutron and Muon Source in the United Kingdom is pro-lific in both the quantity and the diversity of its research outputs. Science areas span a broad range of disciplines and these continue to grow, from energy materials and industrial catalysis to biology and pharmaceuticals. Complex sample environments have already become routine on the instrument, with a range of gas-dosing setups and a dedicated chemical-reaction rig to study catalytic and sustainable processes of direct relevance to the industrial sector. The instrument also supports additional and much-needed scientific capabilities beyond inelastic neutron scattering, including simultaneous diffraction and Raman scattering. More recent efforts have also been directed towards the implementation of in-situ illumination to explore light-driven phenomena. Aside from a handful of (rather heroic!) efforts in the past, high-pressure science has received little-to-no-attention to date. The high-pressure domain has always been a challenge for neutron spectroscopy, where the detected flux is modest, resulting in standard measurement times within the region of a few hours for gram-scale quantities of hydrogenous materials. A recent upgrade of the TOSCA primary spectrometer with a state-of-the-art neutron guide [ 1