The winner of the inaugural 2019 ENSA Neutron Instrumentation and Innovation Award is Markus Appel.
“For ground-breaking advances of the neutron back-scattering technique leading to extended dynamic range, higher resolution and better signal-to-noise on the IN16B spectrometer at ILL”.
Markus Appel, currently a staff scientist at ILL, has since his PhD from TU Darmstadt devoted his talents to implementing innovative improvements to the neutron backscattering technique. These span from conceptual changes such as moving from monochromator to time-of-flight, over clever rephrasing of choppers to achieve ultra-low background, to the material and mechanical challenge of implementing GaAs analyzers. Together these improvements to the IN16B spectrometer at ILL has enabled a wide range of exciting science by a large number of user groups – perfectly embellishing the spirit of the Neutron Instrumentation and Innovation Award. More information about the award, sponsored by Mirrotron, can be found here (https://ensa.tudelft.nl/awards/).