2010 Volume 20 Issue 1 Pages 16-20
Ibaraki Prefectural Government together with Ibaraki University and Japan Atomic Energy Agency (JAEA) has almost finished constructing a time-of-flight (TOF) neutron diffractometer for biological macromolecules for industrial use at BL03 in MLF in J-PARC, IBARAKI Biological Crystal Diffractometer (iBIX). Since 2009, Ibaraki University has been asked to operate this machine in order for users to do experiment by Ibaraki Prefecture. The diffractometer is designed to cover sample crystals which have their cell edges up to around 150 Å. It is expected to measure more than 100 samples per year if they have 2 mm3 in crystal volume, and to measure even around 0.1 mm3 in crystal volume of biological samples. The efficiency of iBIX is also expected about 100 times larger than those of the present high performance diffractometers at JRR-3 in JAEA when 1MW power realizes in J-PARC. Since this May, 14 detector units have been set. By the end of fiscal year 2009, the basic part of data reduction software will be finished and an equipment blowing low temperature gas to the sample will be installed with the cooperation of JAEA.
