Neutrons are unique particles to probe samples in many ?elds of research ranging from biology to material sciences to engineering and security applications. Access to bright, pulsed sources is currentlylimited to large accelerator facilities and there has been a growing need for compact sources over the recent years. Short pulse laser driven neutron sources could be a compact and relatively cheap way toproduce neutrons with energies in excess of 10 MeV. For more than a decade experiments have tried to obtain neutron numbers suf?cient for applications. Our recent experiments demonstrated an ion acceleration mechanism based on the concept of relativistic transparency. Using this new mechanism, we produced an intense beam of high energy (up to 170 MeV) deuterons directed into a Be converter toproduce a forward peaked neutron ?ux with a record yield, on the order of 1010 n=sr. We present results comparing the two acceleration mechanisms and the ?rst short pulse laser generated neutron radiograph.
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机译：中子是独特的粒子，可在从生物学到材料科学到工程和安全应用的许多研究领域中探测样品。当前，只有大型的加速器设备才能使用明亮的脉冲光源，并且近年来对紧凑型光源的需求日益增长。短脉冲激光驱动的中子源可以是一种紧凑且相对便宜的方式来产生能量超过10 MeV的中子。十多年来，实验一直试图获得足以用于应用的中子数。我们最近的实验证明了基于相对论透明性的离子加速机制。使用这种新机制，我们产生了一个高能量的高束氘核（高达170 MeV），并导入了Be转换器，以产生具有记录产量的正向峰值中子通量，约为1010 n = sr。我们比较两个加速机制和短脉冲激光产生的中子射线照相的结果。
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