A 36 m small‐angle neutron scattering (SANS) spectrometer (SMARTer) has been installed at the end of a 49 m long neutron guide tube and located in the neutron guide hall at the Neutron Scattering Laboratory (NSL), Serpong, Indonesia. At present, this is the largest SANS spectrometer in the Asia–Pacific region and consists of an 18 m long tube collimation system and another 18 m long tube to accommodate a 128 × 128 3He two‐dimensional position‐sensitive detector. The detector can be moved continuously from 1.5 to 18 m and can be shifted laterally by 0.1 m to cover a large range of Q, where Q is the magnitude of the scattering vector given by , θ is the scattering angle and λ is the wavelength. By selecting the rotational speed of the velocity selector, the incident thermal neutron beam will have a wavelength λ in the range 3–6 Å and a Q range of 0.002–0.6 Å−1. The maximum neutron flux at the sample position is 4 × 106 neutrons cm−2 s−1. Measurements of some standard samples using SMARTer are reported for inter‐laboratory comparisons that show, for the first time, how SMARTer's capabilities compare with those of other prominent SANS instruments.

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The Neutron Scattering Laboratory at the National Nuclear Energy Agency of Indonesia (BATAN) possesses several neutron beam instruments for materials science research. One of the instruments is a neutron triple-axis spectrometer (TAS). Due to the malfunction of the main computer, the original main control system had to be replaced with a new one. For this reason, a new data acquisition and measurement software program based on GNU C++ programming language was developed for restoring the spectrometer's functionality. However, using the resulting control system, triple-axis mode experiments were very difficult to perform and their types that can be performed were limited. In order to conduct the experiments more effectively and efficiently, several improvements in both hardware and software have been developed. The Visual Basic programming language was used in developing the data acquisition and measurement software that makes it possible for all motors to move simultaneously, so that the time spent for the experiments is reduced significantly. Also, programmable motor controller cards were used for driving all the 23 motors of the instrument. All the 23 axes can be controlled by clicking the appropriate buttons or inputting text command in the main window of the software's user interface. The software has also been used to perform an elastic experiment, as well as an inelastic experiment for investigating the phenomenon of phonon. The software developed is more user friendly than the older ones, since the spectrometer status and the experiment results can be displayed in real time at the windows, and it also makes experiments more effective and efficient since the experiments can be automated and run without any user intervention until the experiments finish.

As it is well known, limestone is a type of sedimentary rock that has a function as a reservoir of oil and gas. One of the factors that affect fluid saturation of the reservoir is the distribution of porosity inside the limestone that represents a percentage of the total available space for the oil and gas to fill in. Since hydrogen and carbon have strong attenuation to the thermal neutron, the oil-filled in the porosity can be investigated by the neutron tomography technique. Therefore, neutron tomography can be used to visualize the distribution of the porosity of the limestone. In this work, we report the characterization of the porosity inside the limestone obtained from the oil and petroleum gas institution of Indonesia using the neutron tomography technique. Characterization of the porosity using X-ray tomography technique also has been done in order to compare the results. The results show the neutron tomography technique is useful to visualize and characterize the porosity inside the limestone.