During the last week (6-11 May, 2018) the Budapest Neutron Centre (BNC – a consortium of MTA Wigner Research Centre for Physics and MTA Centre for Energy Research) hosted the 12th Central European Training School (CETS-12) on neutron techniques. The objective of the school was to provide an insight into different neutron techniques: neutron scattering, imaging and elemental analysis, both at the level of tutorials as well as hands-on training.
This year 27 PhD students, postdocs, graduate students and young researchers attended the school. They arrived from 17 different European and non-European countries, with participants from Argentina to Korea and Tunisia to Israel CETS-12 has taken a real global outreach. The organisers received nearly 50 applications this year, but the number of students by groups during the experimental work had to be restricted, thus attendees were selected with the above number. On the other side this was in favour of high level of the training, students were particularly enthusiast and motivated both in the theoretical, and especially in the practical hands-on-training on the instruments.
Total 10 hours introductory lectures were given by renown experts from European neutron centres, such as ILL Grenoble, JINR Dubna, ESS Lund, University of Vienna as well as by BNC’s leading researchers.
Total 15 hours (5 x 3) of practical work was offered to the participant groups: 5 persons groups were formed and rotated around 6 techniques using 8 instruments. The practical works were conducted by the local instrument scientists, the following type of experiments were available: wide angle and small angle diffraction instruments, reflectometer, prompt gamma and neutron activation analysis stations and the neutron imaging facility.
On the opening day the participants had the opportunity to present their work on posters and in the form of a flash oral presentation. On the last day they received their well-earned certificates as well as special awards were given for the most active participants.
