Laser-driven neutron source from high temperature D-D fusion reactions

TL;DR

This paper demonstrates a laser-driven neutron source from high-temperature D-D fusion with significantly higher yield and flux than previous methods, enabling advanced plasma diagnostics and nuclear physics studies.

Contribution

It introduces a novel high-temperature D-D fusion neutron source driven by a petawatt laser, achieving unprecedented neutron yield and flux levels.

Findings

Neutron yield exceeds 10^8 per Joule of laser energy.

Fusion temperature reaches approximately 200 keV.

Neutron flux surpasses 10^{25} per cm^2 per second.

Abstract

We report a laser-driven neutron source with high yield ($>10^8$/J) and high peak flux ($>10^{25}$/cm$^2$/s) derived from high-temperature deuteron-deuteron fusion reactions. The neutron yield and the fusion temperature ($\sim 200$ keV) in our experiment are respectively two orders of magnitude and one order of magnitude higher than any previous laser-induced D-D fusion reaction. The high-temperature plasma is generated from thin ($\sim 2\,\mu$m), solid-density deuterium targets, produced by a cryogenic jet, irradiated by a 140 fs, 130 J petawatt laser with an F/3 off-axis parabola and a plasma mirror achieving fast volumetric heating of the target. The fusion temperature and neutron fluxes achieved here suggest future laser experiments can take advantage of neutrons to diagnose the plasma conditions and come closer to laboratory study of astrophysically-relevant nuclear physics.