The neutron diffraction laboratory in Řež is part of the Centre of Accelerators and Nuclear Analytical Methods (CANAM) – a large research infrastructure hosted by the Nuclear Physics Institute of the CAS. It is one of the few European facilities providing the scientific community with neutron scattering methods and thus helping to fill the current gap in the availability of neutron beams. The laboratory equipment consists of five neutron diffractometers in the thermal neutron channels of the 10 MW research reactor LVR-15 (operated by Research Centre Řež, Ltd.), four of which are used for experiments mainly in the field of materials research and offered to external users within an open access programme. The TKSN-400 instrument is dedicated to in situ thermomechanical loading experiments for studying deformation mechanisms in metallic materials. For this purpose, it has been equipped with a 20 kN uniaxial stress rig designed in-house, with current heating, as well as a small stress rig in an Eulerian cradle for analysing the evolution of lattice strain components in highly textured materials. Another instrument, TKSN-100, is used for non-destructive mapping of residual stresses in bulky samples, with precise positioning enabled by a robotic arm. The powder diffractometer MEREDIT helps to solve various problems of structure analysis were neutrons provide valuable complementary information, in particular on evolution of magnetic ordering or site occupation by atoms of similar proton numbers. Phase transformations can be observed in situ within a wide thermal range of about 10 to 1300 K using a closed-cycle He cryostat or vacuum furnace. This suite of instruments is complemented by the high-resolution small-angle scattering diffractometer MAUD, which is particularly well suited to studying microstructural features such as porosity or precipitation within the size range of approximately 50–2000 nm. Although there is no dedicated instrument available for neutron imaging, it is possible to perform neutron tomography with a monochromatic beam at the MEREDIT instrument, with a field of view of up to 4x4 cm² and a resolution of < 0.2 mm.
In recent years, the facility has offered around 300 instrument days per year as part of its open access programme, most of which have been allocated to experiments proposed by external users. Applications for experiments are welcome at any time, provided they are feasible and scientifically relevant. These are evaluated by a selection panel comprising internal and external experts.