The Need

High-powered lasers that generate extreme temperatures and pressures can be fired multiple times per second in laser-matter experiments. However, while lasers can fire many times per second, setting up their targets for experiments or neutron generation is substantially slower. These targets are often thin foils that are only millimeters wide and a few microns thick which can be finicky to set up and difficult to align for each subsequent laser fired, decreasing the effective shot rate to a few times per hour.

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The Technology

Researchers at The Ohio State University, led by Dr. Douglass Schumacher, developed an apparatus that repeatedly forms liquid thin films for use as targets in intense laser-matter experiments. These films operate as ideal laser targets, allowing for repetition rates in excess of 10 times per second. The targets are produced by forming liquid crystals into liquid thin films that are destroyed during the initial laser shot but then reformed in precisely the same position before the next laser shot arrives, eliminating the need for realignment.

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Benefits/Advantages

• Laser based neutron source becomes feasible due to precise and rapid generation of laser target, which can be optimized for neutron release.
• Pre-pulse cleaning for a cleaner, more controlled, and more effective laser-target interaction.
• High repetition rates (10 Hz)
• Low vapor pressure of liquid crystals
• Target thickness can be varied within a range of nanometers to microns and varied in real time.

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Commercial Applications

• Non-destructive testing and inspection
  • Neutron imaging
    • Screening of dense materials like metal
    • Cutting edge medical approaches like Boron Neutron Capture Therapy
  • Security; detection of fissile materials.
• Advanced manufacturing and material Processing
  • Higher precision laser ablation
• Research and Development in High Energy Density Physics
  • Academic or Corporate laboratories