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Los Alamos National Laboratory (LANL) and collaborators have pioneered a novel short duration yet extremely intense neutron source using the short‐pulse laser at LANL's Trident laser facility [1‐5]. The laser beam can be concentrated to a peak intensity up to 1021 W/cm2, that, when interacting with a sub‐micron ultrathin CD (or CD2) foil target, drives a high‐energy deuteron beam. That intense beam converts into a neutron flux in a beryllium target that acts as catcher of deuterons and converter of deuterons to neutrons. The Trident laser‐driven neutron source featured high intensity and directionality, ~1010 fast neutrons per shot in a ~1 sr cone and with an extremely short neutron pulse of <1 ns in time. In order to enable thermal and epithermal neutron applications, such as nuclear resonance spectroscopy for isotopic identification of (irradiated) nuclear fuel [6], temperature measurement in shock–driven dynamic material experiments [7], and pulsed neutron diffraction and scattering, we have developed a bright moderated short‐pulse laser‐driven neutron source.
The presentation discusses the measured features of the moderated single‐pulse neutron source that we have just demonstrated. Moreover, the presentation compares the laser‐driven short pulse neutron source with the spallation neutron source at the LANSCE facility, and the prospects of such novel laser‐driven compact neutron sources based on available or proposed laser systems for medium and large scale neutron user facilities.
References
[1] Roth, M. et al., PRL 110 044802 (2013).
[2] Fernández, J. C., et al. Physics of Plasmas 24.5 (2017): 056702.
[4] Vogel, S. C., et al. Neutron News 29.2 (2018): 32‐36.
[5] Favalli, A., et al. Scientific Reports 9.1 (2019): 2004.
[6] Roth, Markus, et al. report LA‐UR‐17‐23190. Los Alamos National Lab, (Los Alamos, NM, USA, 2017).
[7] Yuan, V. et al., PRL 94, 125504 (2005).