Component Manual for the Neutron Ray-Tracing Package McStas, version 3.8.6

10.5  The PSD_monitor McStas Component

Position-sensitive monitor.

Identification

Description

An (n times m) pixel PSD monitor. This component may also be used as a beam detector.

Example: PSD_monitor(xmin=-0.1, xmax=0.1, ymin=-0.1, ymax=0.1, nx=90, ny=90, filename="Output.psd")

Input parameters

Parameters in boldface are required; the others are optional.

Name

Unit

Description

Default

nx

1

Number of pixel columns

90

ny

1

Number of pixel rows

90

filename

string

Name of file in which to store the detector image

0

xmin

m

Lower x bound of detector opening

-0.05

xmax

m

Upper x bound of detector opening

0.05

ymin

m

Lower y bound of detector opening

-0.05

ymax

m

Upper y bound of detector opening

0.05

xwidth

m

Width of detector. Overrides xmin, xmax

0

yheight

m

Height of detector. Overrides ymin, ymax

0

restore_neutron

1

If set, the monitor does not influence the neutron state

0

nowritefile

1

If set, monitor will skip writing to disk

0

Links

The PSD monitor

The component PSD_monitor resembles other monitors, e.g. TOF_Monitor, and also propagates the neutron ray to the detector surface in the \((x,y)\)-plane, where the detector window is set by the \(x\) and \(y\) input coordinates. The PSD monitor, though, is not sensitive to the arrival time of the neutron ray, but rather to its position. The rectangular monitor window, given by the \(x\) and \(y\) limits is divided into \(n_x \times n_y\) pixels.

The output from PSD_monitor is the integrated counts, \(n, I, M_2\), as well as three two-dimensional arrays of counts: \(n(x,y), I(x,y), M_2(x,y)\). The arrays are written to a file, filename, and can be read e.g. by the tool mcplot, see the system manual.