After acquiring the Collimator division of CIDIC Engineering, Euro Collimators Ltd was formed in 1995. CIDIC started working directly with Rutherford Appleton Laboratories in the early 1970’s – principally to support the development and production of Soller collimators.

In 1995 R.A.L agreed to provide technical advice and support in order to develop collimator production still further.

Today Euro Collimators Ltd is a small Cheltenham based company; in January 2011 the company was restructured, T Booth Engineering Ltd who for over 15 years have been the main supplier of components for Euro Collimators have invested in the company, whilst retaining the Design, Project and Production Team.

The Company has successfully designed, developed and produced Soller, Diverging, Double Diverging, Honeycomb, Radial and Oscillating Radial collimators utilising a variety of materials and methods, these include foils made of Mylar, Peek, Aluminium and Stainless Steel coated with Gadolinium Oxide or Boron-10 absorbers.

The Company offers a complete service that includes involvement with scientists and engineers at the earliest stage of development through to delivery and installation at the customer’s premises if required.

In addition to the supply of collimators the company with our partners T Booth Engineering Ltd can also manufacture a variety of mounting systems and sub tables to enable the collimators to be accurately positioned. We also produce bespoke B4C and Boron Polyethylene Protection and can supply pre-mixed Gadolinium Oxide and Boron paint in quantities as small as 1 litre to enable facilities to spray coat where required.

Euro Collimators most frequently produced collimator is the highly successful Soller Slit collimator with stretched Mylar foils coated with Gadolinium Oxide or Boron-10 absorber and optimised to produce transmissions greater than 95%of the theoretical maximum.

This type of collimator has been further developed to include collimators with either Aluminium or High Performance Thermal Plastic (PEEK) foils. Each has excellent resistance to gamma radiation-capable of absorbing over 1000 rads of irradiation as well as over 10 rads of alpha or beta irradiation – the latter are more reliable and equally as efficient. All types of foil can be coated with Gadolinium Oxide or Boron-10 and are suitable for in-pile collimation.

The efficiency of Soller slit Collimators for limiting the divergence neutron beams depends upon the uniformity of the slit spacing throughout the Collimator length, the thickness of the foil and the straightness of the foil edges as well as the degree of absorption of the foil. These points are particularly important when fine collimation (less than 10 minutes of arc) is required. We have developed and manufactured a system for the tensioning of small divergence collimators that enables blade spacing of less than 0.5mm to be accurately positioned.

To maximise the intensity transmitted by thermal neutron Spectrometers highly efficient components must be used. Multi-slot Soller Collimators which use foils of stretched Mylar film coated with a neutron absorbing layer approaching the theoretical limit of efficiency are now available commercially. Each Collimator is designed to the customer’s requirements and beam apertures of up to 50 cm² can be collimated down to divergences of 5 minutes of arc if required. Collimators with 10 to 60 minutes of arc divergence can be produced.

The absorbing layers can either be Gadolinium based or Boron-10 depending upon the range of energies to be collimated. Gadolinium is a more efficient absorber for energies lower than 150 meV and is normally recommended for reactor-based Spectrometers. Boron-10 absorbers would find particular application on the new epithermal pulsed neutron sources and at the upper energy ranges of reaction sources. Such Collimators have also been used to provide large-area well-defined divergence beams of low energy muons for uSR Spectrometers and could be applied to low-energy particle beams.

For special applications, converging Soller Collimators have been built using the above technique and crossed collimator arrangements find application in small angle scattering Diffractometers.

And because we take a flexible approach to product development and work closely with our client to ensure each Collimator is made to their exact specifications, we have a client list that is second to none.

Euro Collimators Ltd would welcome collaborative development programmes involving new types of Collimators.

In summary Euro Collimators provides a complete service for all Collimator needs and we will be happy to discuss any requirements you may have.