Since early 1990’s, various schemes of the laser ion acceleration (LIA) has been developed as one of the applications of the intense short-pulse-laser interaction with plasmas [1]. The LIAhas been applied to make neutron source. In this seminar, I overview the recent progresses of the development of the laser driven neutron source (LDNS) [2]and the nuclear resonance absorption (NRA) imaging [3]. The LDNS is unique because the number of neutrons per micro pulse is very large and the source size and the pulse width are small. Therefore, the extensive research and development of LDNS are going on in the world. A LDNS by the LIA is described, which is the Pitcher-Catcher Scheme (PCS). The characteristics of the LDNS by PCS are compared with those of the accelerator driven neutron source (ADNS) and the unique application of LDNS such as the nuclear resonance absorption (NRA) imaging is presented. Namely, in the LDNS, the NRA imaging is possible with a relatively short beam line in comparison with that of the ADNS, since the neutron pulse width and the source size of LDNS are small. The future prospect of the R&D of the NRA imaging with LDNS [4] is also discussed.[1] A. Macchi, P.59-P.92, Chap.5 Laser Driven Ion Acceleration, “Application of Laser-Driven Particle Acceleration”, Edited by P.R. Bolton, K. Parodi, and J. Schreiber, CRC press, Taylor & Francis Group, 2018, (M. Borghesi will present this topic on LDIA in this seminar.) [2] Lancaster, K.L., Karsch, S., Habara, H., et al., Characterization of 7Li(p,n)7Be neutron yields from laser produced ion beams for fast neutron radiography, Physics of Plasmas, 11.3404(2004) [3] S. Kar, A. Green, H. Ahmed, A. Alejo, A.P.L. Robinson, M. Cerchez, R. Clarke, D. Doria, S. Dorkings, J. Fernandez, S.R. Mirfayzi1 , P. McKenna5 , K. Naughton1 , D. Neely2 , P. Norreys2,6 , C. Peth3 , H. Powell, J. A. Ruiz, J. Swain, O. Willi and M. Borghesi, “Beamed neutron emission driven by laser accelerated light ions” New J. Phys. 18, 053002 (2016).[4] A.Yogo, et al., “Laser-driven neutron generation realizing single-shot resonance Spectroscopy”, to be published in PRX, 2022.
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