Abstract
Inelastic neutron scattering is a widely used technique to study phonon and magnon excitations in condensed matter and the triple axis spectrometer (TAS) is one of the main instruments used for such inelastic neutron scattering studies. As a consequence the TAIPAN TAS will be the first inelastic instrument at the new Australian research reactor OPAL. It will be located on a thermal neutron beam tube at the reactor shielding face and can be operated either in a high flux mode, with a double focusing monochromator and analyser, or in a traditional mode of operation with Soller collimators providing high resolution. A polarisation analysis capability will be realised on TAIPAN using supermirror benders.