On November 30th 2020, after 12 months of mechanical design then 12 months of construction, the time-of-flight chamber of the new Sharp spectrometer has been delivered to the ILL. This is an important milestone for LLB (CEA and CNRS), ILL and the user community. The contract linking CEA and CNRS on one side and the ILL on the other side, was signed at the end of 2017 (https://www.ill.eu/users/instruments/instruments-list/sharp/sharp-the-project) and IN6 has become a French CRG operated by the LLB since then.
A key step is currently in progress: the furbishing of the chamber with the 240 new PSDs (Positive Sensitive Detector), the electronics and a brand-new Data Acquisition System (DAS). After this upgrade, SHARP will enter in a hot commissioning phase and will be back to regular operations with users for the fall cycle of 2021.
An upcoming phase of upgrade will start by the end of 2021 by the construction of a brand-new guide: this is the H15 ILL project (decision pending).
Sharp will be moved at the end position of this 138 m guide. A retractable focusing portion of the guide will make it possible to operate in Time or Monochromatic focusing. The instrument will also take advantage of a brand new XY spatial focusing 20*30 cm2 PG monochromator to operate on an extended wavelength band from 2 to 6 Å. A Fluorinated Mica monochromator is under study to operate on the wavelength band from 6 to 12 Å.
Altogether, in 2023, this new spectrometer called SHARP+ will offer a gain of 15 in counting rate compared to IN6.