31st International Seminar on Interaction of Neutrons with Nuclei: Fundamental Interactions & Neutrons, Nuclear Structure, Ultracold Neutrons, Related Topics (ISINN-31)

Laser-Driven Compact High-Flux Ultrafast Neutron Sources

30 May 2025, 10:00

30m

Exhibition Hall (1st floor)

Plenary session Plenary Session

Speaker

Tongpu Yu (NUDT)

Description

Neutron sources have been widely applied in numerous fields, ranging from detection technology to medicine and laboratory astrophysics due to their unique features of electrical neutrality and deep penetration capability. Currently, there are two main mechanisms for the generation of neutrons assisted by lasers, i.e., photonuclear reactions (γ, n) and beam-target nuclear reactions. Compared with traditional spallation neutron sources like CSNS, the laser-driven neutron sources have several advantages like high brightness, relatively low cost, compactness, and short duration. Here we show one of the typical laser-driven neutron sources based on ion acceleration via Target Normal Sheath Acceleration with the help of the pitch–catcher model. Cascade simulation results using PIC simulations and Geant4 will be presented and the recent experimental results at SILEX-II and Xingguang will be released. Some potential applications and planned experiments will be discussed.
Acknowledgment
Present study was supported by the NSFC (12375244 and 12135009).