PiNNaCLE

The goal of the project is to develop techniques, in a staged approach, and push for optimization of a compact and high-brightness source of pulsed neutrons, using high-power lasers as a driver. In short, such lasers offer prospect for relatively inexpensive, extremely compact, collimated and fast (MeV) neutron sources, with the advantage of short duration, as demonstrated by our group in 2015 using our patented original concept. This would allow to satisfy the increasing demand for neutron sources, which will be difficult to meet with conventional facilities (accelerators) due to their associated cost (Billions of €). It will also enable a flexible experimental platform to uniquely study neutron interactions in the plasma state (for e.g. the nucleosynthesis of heavy elements in plasmas), which is not possible at conventional facilities where additional particle beams and energy sources to drive high-energy-density plasmas are usually missing. Establishing high-intensity, PetaWatt-class lasers as an attractive alternate for high-flux neutrons sources with relatively lower costs is timely. High-power laser facilities are indeed on a fast rise, and prove to be a very versatile tool to generate a wide range of secondary sources that can be used for scientific or societal applications, but none is yet geared to generate neutrons as a probing secondary source. This project is geared for the new, multi-PetaWatt (PW) Apollon laser users’ facility (financed in the frame of the large “Equipex/Investments for the Future programme” projects). It will associate four French laboratories, in partnership with IFIN-HH/ELI-NP (Romania), who have complementary expertise in laser-driven ion beams and nuclear physics. The project is expected to complement the capabilities of current neutron facilities to expand the field of neutron physics and applications (e.g. neutron radiography and spectroscopy). It will as well widen the applicability of laser-driven ion beam sources, all of which will benefit next-generation large-scale and high repetition rate (up to 10 Hz) facilities presently built in France, the EU and Asia.