Renaissance: A Decade of Development at ILL

Abstract

The ILL has seen remarkable developments on three broad fronts throughout the past decade: its Refit Programme has enabled us to conform to stringent new nuclear safety standards, safeguarding our source for many years to come; the Millennium Programme strives to rebuild or replace our suite of public instruments; the foundation of interface laboratories in biology, engineering and soft-condensed matter–with yet more planned in other areas–has brought in new users. Here, we focus on broad aspects of the Millennium Programme–past, present and future–as an introduction to the three following articles that present the newest additions it has made to our instrument suite (see articles on D11, IN5 and FIGARO in this issue); we also elaborate on the philosophy behind our interface laboratories and describe some of the benefits they are starting to bring.