The Wombat instrument is one of a few neutron diffraction instruments in the world to have a large position sensitive (effective area) detector, which has enabled the wide range of science applications and outcomes undertaken with the instrument [1]. To date, Wombat has largely been used as a powder diffraction instrument, but recent work has been undertaken to expand the single crystal program [2] and to increase access to crystallographic texture measurements on the instrument. Texture is a quantification of the orientation distribution of crystallites in a polycrystalline material, which can influence macroscopic properties and be inherent to the material manufacturing or production process. Conventionally, X-ray diffraction and electron backscatter diffraction have been used for texture evaluation, but neutron diffraction has a distinct advantage in that it can directly measure the bulk textures of a wide range of polycrystalline materials with minimal sample treatment.
This contribution will present two streams of recent texture measurement developments on Wombat. Firstly, we are aiming to instigate a mail-in program for rapid texture measurements (< 2 hours) and will demonstrate how this has been benchmarked along with the application of a data analysis pipeline to make this a cost-effective service for industry and academia alike.
Secondly, we will present the study of benzene as a model molecular mineral (in the context of Saturn’s largest moon Titan) with a variable temperature texture study. Many molecular solids exhibit annealing behaviour as their melting temperature is approached, such as has been noted to be significant in solid nitrogen [3]. Understanding of this annealing behaviour would be a key step stepping from the atom-scale properties recently established for these materials to macro-scale properties that would influence their behaviour in geological settings. For instance, preferential growth along a particular crystallographic direction would potentially impart a weakness in the bulk of the material that could be exploited by chemical weathering or structural deformation.
[1] Maynard-Casely, Tobin et al, (2026) Wombat, the high-intensity diffractometer in operation at the Australian Centre for Neutron Scattering. J Appl Cryst.
[2] Tobin et al (2025) Single crystal developments on Wombat, the high intensity neutron diffractometer at ANSTO. AIP Summer meeting.
[3] H.E. Maynard-Casely et al (2020) Re-examining the crystal structure behaviour of methane and nitrogen IUCrJ.