The first pulsed neutron source in Tohoku University has been constructed by the late Professor N. Watanabe at the spearhead of the neutron scattering team since 1971. He has written vividly in the memories of the closing of the pulsed neutron source in 1995 how it has been constructed.

High Intensity Total scattering spectrometer (HIT) was constructed under Professor Watanabe’s leadership. Structures of various kinds of amorphous materials, glasses and liquids were studied and the structure factor S(Q) up to the high scattering vector of Q~30 Å^-1 gave us precise information on the short-range atomic configuration in the real space. Moreover, the use of isotopes provides us another advantage for the structural investigation. Bhatia-Thornton and Faber-Ziman type partial structures for Ni-60at%Ti amorphous alloy could be derived precisely using ⁶⁰Ni-isotope.

Short memories or a few episodes with the Professor Noboru Watanabe are presented in order to condole his death.

Personal memory of the late Professor Noboru Watanabe is described. Since I was a graduated student of Tohoku University 35 years ago, I have been collaborating with professor Watanabe. He was one of the best supervisors in my carrier through works in KENS facility, UK-Japan Collaboration and J-PARC construction. Here I sincerely appreciate his life-long contribution to the development of spallation technologies world wide, and express my deepest condolence for his passing.

I like to try to tell my thought of Prof. Noboru Watanabe, engraved in my mind as a short dramatic story of J-PARC pulse neutron source construction during a period from 1997 to 2008. Major focus is placed on what he thought and behaved throughout the project. I also like to convey all stimulations received from him and what he looked like in our daily life during the project.

This is my memory for Prof. Noboru Watanabe in KENS around 1990. My scientific career would not have been possible without the initial encouragement and instruction of Watanabe-sensei who acted as my Ph.D supervisor and introduced me, with enthusiasm, to the subject of pulsed neutron scattering.

This paper is dedicated to late Professor Noboru Watanabe, who passed away in August 2015

Moderator development from KENS to J-PARC was performed with Watanabe-sensei. A solid methane moderator was equipped at KENS as the first cold neutron source at pulsed neutron source dedicated to neutron scattering. A grooved methane moderator was also used at KENS. For the J-PARC neutron source, proton energy, moderator type and so on were decided. His wide and deep knowledge from science to engineering made construction of the J-PARC neutron source successful.

Late Professor Noboru Watanabe started his carrier as a neutron scientist at the Nuclear Science Laboratory at Tohoku University in 1960s, and one of the pioneers of pulsed neutron source. He has developed many time-of-flight (TOF) type neutron scattering instruments at the laboratory. He also built the Neutron Scattering Facility at High Energy Physics Laboratory, KENS, the first user oriented neutron facility. The target station he built at KENS was extremely efficient and it was the first spallation facility that accommodated a cold neutron source. He then was at the center of promoting large spallation neutron source, eventually realized as the J-PARC facility. The conceptual design of the facility was the fruit of his efforts and the performance is unbelievably good. I was Noboru’s first student and he had been my mentor throughout my carrier.

We all lament the death of Prof. Noboru Watanabe and remember his pioneering contribution for pulsed neutron science achieved in KAKURIKEN, Tohoku University.

I trace Noboru Watanabe’s career from my first knowledge of the Neutron Sputnik diffractometer that he and Motoharu Kimura built at the Tohoku electron linac neutron source in the late 1960s. Starting in 1968, Argonne scientists conceived a pulsed spallation neutron source called ZING. In 1973, Kimura and Watanabe came to Argonne (ANL) to assist in the design of a prototype, ZING-P, with simple neutron scattering instruments, which was completed in early 1974 and proved out the principles of the new technologies. An improved prototype, ZING-P’, followed, which operated until 1979. Kimura and Watanabe returned to Japan, where they promoted a pulsed spallation neutron source called KENS at KEK, which Noboru Watanabe completed in 1980, with Yoshikazu Ishikawa in the lead. Argonne workers completed IPNS in 1981, and intense collaborations continued between KEK and Argonne. In 1977, four by-then-involved laboratories formed the International Collaboration on Advanced Neutron Sources, ICANS, including ANL, KEK, LANL, and Rutherford Laboratory (in the UK). Watanabe led the science program at KENS and took prominent roles in ICANS meetings including ICANS-XXI at Tokai-mura in 2014. Watanabe also served on advisory committees of almost all of the spallation source projects formed over the years.

In the last part of his lecture as the first recipient of the AONSA Prize, Professor Watanabe described in 2011 the MLF spallation source facility at J-PARC as a suite of innovative technical choices. Indeed, the high power at low repetition rate, exclusively cold moderators, the unique para H₂ large volume moderator, the optimal use of water premoderators opened up new ways in conceiving pulsed spallation sources. The present recollection of these novel neutronic features tries to recall the perception of these trendsetting achievements in his most memorable prize lecture.

We briefly introduce the principle of measurement for inelastic and quasielastic scattering and the specification of DNA. The time-of-flight (TOF) type near-backscattering spectrometer (n-BSS), DNA, with Si crystal analyzers was built and operation was started in 2012 at the Materials and Life Science Experimental Facility (MLF) of the Japan Proton Accelerator Research Complex (J-PARC). DNA is the first n-BSS equipped with a pulse shaping chopper installed at spallation pulsed neutron sources.

In the Materials and Life science experimental Facility (MLF) of J-PARC, the computing environment group was organized from the construction of MLF. The group has been developed and operated the neutron event-recording data acquisition (DAQ) system, the data analysis library and the device control software framework for neutron experimental instruments in MLF. In this article, we report the new developments as follows: The universal event-recording DAQ system to make the most of the intense neutrons; the data process framework to enable multi-dimensional data analysis at various neutron instruments; the remote access to be easily able to monitor a measurement status and handle many kinds of enormous data from anytime, anywhere.