Upgrade of the 32 m small-angle neutron scattering instrument SANS-U

The small‐angle neutron scattering instrument, SANS‐U, owned by the Institute for Solid State Physics, The University of Tokyo, has been upgraded. The SANS‐U is a 32 m SANS instrument installed in 1991 at the guide hall of the JRR‐3M research reactor of the Japan Atomic Energy Research Institute, and has been serving for inter‐university cooperative research use since 1993. The major upgrades include (i) replacement of the two‐dimensional area detector by a multi‐wire type position‐sensitive proportional counter, (ii) renewal of the operating system from a VAX and sequencers to an integrated PXI system controlled by LabVIEW‐RT software, (iii) a focusing collimation system, and (iv) a variety of accessory equipment. These upgrades provide a wide dynamic range of neutron counting, user‐friendly operation and real‐time circular averaging of two‐dimensional data.