In order to help researchers learn about how muons can be used to study materials, ISIS ran a week-long training course in April 2008. Eighteen researchers, mainly post-graduate and post-doctoral workers, came from twelve different countries. They were able to hear a variety of lectures and workshops on the muon technique given by experienced researchers. But perhaps the most valuable part of the course was the chance to perform muon experiments - the best way for the participants to learn how they can best use muons in their own research in future.
Sean Giblin and Iain McKenzie (ISIS) with students on the ISIS muon training course loading a cryostat.
Copies of lectures given at the course can be found below in .pdf format (please be aware that some of these are several Mb in size):
Welcome + Overview (Philip King)
Introduction to μSR (Steve Blundell)
μSR Beamlines (James Lord)
μSR Spectrometers (Sean Giblin)
RF-μSR and Pulsed Environments (James Lord)
Data Analysis (Francis Pratt)
Writing Beam Applications (Philip King)
Introduction to relaxation functions (Steve Blundell)
Applications 1: Magnetic systems (Roberto De Renzi)
Applications 2: Superconductors (Robert Cywinski)
Neutrons and Muons (Sue Kilcoyne)
RIKEN (Katsu Ishida)
Applications 3: Semiconductors (Steve Cox) Handouts
Applications 4: Molecular materials (Iain McKenzie)
PSI Fast and Slow Muons (Thomas Prokscha)
Development of HiFi (Zaher Salman)
NMR and μSR (Pietro Carreta)
Handouts describing the practical sessions can be found here:
Building a µSR spectrometer
Modeling hydrogen impurity in the wide-gap semiconductor CdS
High-Tc superconductor - practical notes
High-Tc superconductor - background article 1
High-Tc superconductor - background article 2
Antiferromagnetic phase transition
Muon diffusion in copper
Observation of the F-μ+-F state in a fluorinated polymer
Useful references for the muon technique can be found here.
