Dear Colleagues,

We hereby solicit contributions for a special issue of the journal “Symmetry” on Neutron Scattering, and Neutron Scattering Simulations.

Symmetry is at the heart of many neutron scattering experimental techniques, whether arising from crystalline materials forming the sample or from the instrumentation itself. Due to the scarcity of useful neutrons, symmetry is in fact often a precondition of performing the experiment at all. With this in mind, it is very fitting that a special issue on this topic should be published in the present journal.

In general, neutron scattering experiments provide unique abilities to probe the inner workings of materials nondestructively. To exemplify, the technique has proven invaluable when probing magnetic materials, dynamics in solid state materials, or in cultural heritage studies where damaging the object measured must be preserved.

The special issue comes especially timely given the new and powerful neutron sources coming online within the next few years such as the European Spallation Source (ESS) and the planned Second Target Station at Spallation Neutron Source, as well as upgrade programs to several other sources.

First, with the advent of the  new generation of sources, the available flux gives access to new types of experiments that have as of yet not been feasible. Second, the landscape is also changing from a computing perspective, where large scale parallelism is becoming readily available to scientists; high throughput devices are becoming ever cheaper and high level tools are sufficiently mature that the new devices may be exploited with small algorithmic changes. Third, new computing power may also provide new routes towards utilizing “lower” flux sources in better ways, in terms of extracting more science from “lesser” data.

It is the aim of this special issue to provide a platform for exploring concepts, from neutron generation, through instrumentation, simulation, and analysis of scattering data, thus covering the full neutron experiment from source to end.

This is a great opportunity to present your new concepts and ideas to the community.

Dr. Erik Bergbäck Knudsen
Guest Editor

Manuscript Submission Information

Manuscripts should be submitted online at www.mdpi.com by registering and logging in to this website. Once you are registered, click here to go to the submission form. Manuscripts can be submitted until the deadline. All submissions that pass pre-check are peer-reviewed. Accepted papers will be published continuously in the journal (as soon as accepted) and will be listed together on the special issue website. Research articles, review articles as well as short communications are invited. For planned papers, a title and short abstract (about 100 words) can be sent to the Editorial Office for announcement on this website.

Submitted manuscripts should not have been published previously, nor be under consideration for publication elsewhere (except conference proceedings papers). All manuscripts are thoroughly refereed through a single-blind peer-review process. A guide for authors and other relevant information for submission of manuscripts is available on the Instructions for Authors page. Symmetry is an international peer-reviewed open access monthly journal published by MDPI.

Please visit the Instructions for Authors page before submitting a manuscript. The Article Processing Charge (APC) for publication in this open access journal is 2400 CHF (Swiss Francs). Submitted papers should be well formatted and use good English. Authors may use MDPI's English editing service prior to publication or during author revisions.

• New concepts for neutron scattering instrumentation
• Simulation of specific instruments, concepts and parts thereof
• Neutron generation as sources
• Inelastic neutron scattering
• Simulation of instrumental concepts
• Methods for simulating neutrons experiments
• Data analysis
• Macromolecular neutron scattering
• Polarized neutron scattering.