Superintense laser-driven photon activation analysis

Laser-driven radiation sources are attracting increasing attention for several materials science applications. While laser-driven ions, electrons and neutrons have already been considered to carry out the elemental characterization of materials, the possibility to exploit high-energy photons remains unexplored. Indeed, the electrons generated by the interaction of an ultra-intense laser pulse with a near-critical material can be turned into high-energy photons via bremsstrahlung emission when shot into a high-Z converter. These photons could be effectively exploited to perform Photon Activation Analysis (PAA). In the present work, laser-driven PAA is proposed and investigated. We develop a theoretical approach to identify the optimal experimental conditions for laser-driven PAA in a wide range of laser intensities. Lastly, exploiting the Monte Carlo and Particle-In-Cell tools, we successfully simulate PAA experiments performed with both conventional accelerators and laser-driven sources. Under high repetition rate operation (i.e. 1-10 Hz) conditions, the ultra-intense lasers can allow performing PAA with performances comparable with those achieved with conventional accelerators. Moreover, laser-driven PAA could be exploited jointly with complementary laser-driven materials characterization techniques under investigation in existing laser facilities. Photon activation analysis is a non-destructive technique for material characterization that require high photon energies. Here, laser-driven accelerator is considered as a high-energy photon source and its optimization for photon activation analysis explored theoretically.

Automated summary

Laser-driven photon activation analysis (PAA) is proposed as a new method for material characterization, utilizing high-energy photons for analysis. Theoretical simulations were used to identify optimal experimental conditions for laser-driven PAA, showing comparable performance with conventional accelerators under high repetition rate operation.