John M. Carpenter of Argonne National Laboratory (ANL) is being honored with the Materials Research Society (MRS) Innovation in Materials Characterization Award “for innovations in neutron sources that have fundamentally changed their performance and enabled opportunities for further advancement of materials that improve the quality of life.” He will be presented with the award at the 2015 MRS Spring Meeting in San Francisco. The award is endowed by Toh-Ming Lu and Gwo-Ching Wang.

Neutron scattering is one of the most important characterization tools available to materials scientists. The strengths of neutron scattering—sensitivity to hydrogen, deep penetration into materials, inelastic excitations, sensitivity to magnetism—have been critical in our understanding of high-temperature superconductivity (inelastic excitations), spin structure in exotic materials (magnetism), the function of proteins in pharmaceuticals (hydrogen), and sources of fatigue in reinforcement cables for bridges (deep penetration).

One of Carpenter’s major contributions to materials science is the invention of the high intensity pulsed thermal neutron source. He recognized the value of using the intrinsic time structure of a pulsed spallation neutron source to perform neutron scattering. He also recognized that with clever design of the spallation target and its moderator and reflector assemblies, the efficiency in converting proton beam power to neutron production while maintaining very sharp neutron pulses (for high-resolution neutron scattering) could be vastly increased.

Carpenter’s pioneering work in inventing the pulsed thermal neutron source (ZING-P at ANL) and a myriad of instrumentation designed for such a source resulted in the construction of a new generation of neutron sources. These sources in Japan (KENS), Argonne (the Intense Pulsed Neutron Source, of which Carpenter was the director), the Los Alamos Neutron Science Center, and ISIS in the United Kingdom established a new trend in source performance. Today, the Spallation Neutron Source at Oak Ridge, J-PARC (Japan), the European Spallation Source (to start in 2019)—all pulsed spallation neutron sources—have exceeded the performance of the most powerful reactors.

Carpenter earned his PhD degree in nuclear engineering from the University of Michigan. He is a Fellow of the American Physical Society, American Nuclear Society, Neutron Scattering Society of America (which also awarded Carpenter its highest honor—the Cliff Shull Prize), and the American Association for the Advancement of Science. He continues to lecture and is actively involved in commissioning the ultra-small-angle-scattering instrument at the Spallation Neutron Source.