9  Instrument examples

In this section, we present a few typical instruments from the McStas example library. We then give a longer description of three selected worked examples: a simple sample test instrument (9.2), the historical Risø triple-axis spectrometer TAS1 (9.3), and the ISIS time-of-flight spectrometer PRISMA (9.4).

These instrument files are included in the McStas distribution in the examples/ directory (mcstas-comps/examples in the source tree), organised by facility/category. Any of them can be loaded from mcgui’s New from Template menu (known as “Neutron site” in older McStas releases, see section 3.2): selecting one copies the instrument into your working directory, ready to edit, run, or trace.

The list below is a curated tour, not an exhaustive catalogue – new example instruments are added continuously as facilities contribute instrument descriptions. Use mcdoc (section 3.5.8) or browse the examples/ directory directly for the full, current list.