Abstract
Recent advancements in laser wakefield accelerators have resulted in the generation of low divergence, hundred MeV, quasimonoenergetic electron beams. The bremsstrahlung produced by these highly energetic electrons in heavy converters includes a large number of MeV γ rays that have been utilized to induce photofission in natural uranium. Analysis of the measured delayed γ emission demonstrates production of greater than 3× 105 fission events per joule of laser energy, which is more than an order of magnitude greater than that previously achieved. Monte Carlo simulations model the generated bremsstrahlung spectrum and compare photofission yields as a function of target depth and incident electron energy.
| Original language | English |
|---|---|
| Article number | 231107 |
| Journal | Applied Physics Letters |
| Volume | 89 |
| Issue number | 23 |
| DOIs | |
| State | Published - 2006 |
Funding
This work was supported by the NSF through the Physics Frontier Center, FOCUS (NSF PHY 0114336). Four of the authors (J.R.B., D.R.S., D.W.S., and C.R.V.) were partially sponsored by the Laboratory Directed Research and Development Program of Oak Ridge National Laboratory (ORNL), managed by UTBattelle, LLC for the U.S. Department of Energy under Contract No. DE-AC05-00OR22725.