Laser transmutation of iodine-129

Laser-Triggered Nuclear Reactions

“…Such a measurement, using laser-generated bremsstrahlung, has been shown recently [15,16,17,63] by the measurement of the cross section maximum of the (γ,n)-reaction in the isotope 129 I. Although the values obtained for σ max vary strongly and the errors are still large, these measurements demonstrate that laser-generated energetic bremsstrahlung as well as laser-accelerated particles can be used to measure nuclear reaction parameters quantitatively.…”

“…Two techniques of measuring the maximum cross-sectional value were realized: First, σ max is obtained from (3.9) if the parameters of the bremsstrahlung distribution are known from previous or simultaneous nuclear activation measurements and if some assumptions on the cross section are made [15,63]. As shown in (3.8), the shape of the cross section is Lorentzian-like.…”

“…A whole series of classical known nuclear reactions has been shown to be feasible with lasers, such as photo-induced fission [6,7], proton-and ion-induced reactions [5,8,9], or deuterium fusion [10,11,12,13,14]. Recently the cross section of the (γ,n)-reaction of 129 I was measured in laser-based experiments [15,16,17]. This last step from the pure observation of nuclear reactions to the measurement of nuclear parameters is of importance regarding the small size of…”

Laser Pulse Contrast Ratio Cleaning in 100 TW Scale Ti: Sapphire Laser Systems

“…For applications development, recent progress of laser systems combining high intensity and high repetition rate have attracted considerable interest for the production of solid target based secondary sources where high mean brightness is required. In high field science, this includes bright x-ray sources (Chen et al, 2004;Schnürer et al, 2000;Teubner et al, 2003;Thaury et al, 2007), high energy particle acceleration (Fritzler et al, 2003;Steinke et al, 2010;Zeil et al, 2010) and nuclear activation (Grillon et al, 2002;Magill et al, 2003). To illustrate this interest for high peak intensities, recently published scaling laws for laser based proton acceleration on thin film solid targets (Fuchs et al, 2006) have shown that an important increase of the on target laser intensity is necessary to reach the expected energy required for biomedical application in the proton therapy field (60 -250 MeV).…”

A vision for laser induced particle acceleration and applications

“…During the years since then we have been very much instrumental in carrying out a number of "proof of concept" experiments at the Rutherford Appleton Laboratory and a number of laboratories in Europe principally at the University of Jena. These experiments included laser induced fission [1], laser induced PET isotope production [2-4], laser induced transmutation studies [5,6], laser induced heavy ion reactions [7,8], laser induced proton production from short pulse lasers [9,10], laser induced spallation studies [11], laser induced neutron production [12][13][14] and the use of laser induced isotope production as a high temperature plasma diagnostic [15]. Many of the details of how laser induced nuclear physics operates are described in a recent Science Article [16].…”