A laser beam strikes a piece of metal or plastic and, in a flash a millionth of a millionth of a second long, produces a beam of protons, ions, or gamma rays. This project tackles a practical bottleneck. Current sources of these energetic radiation beams rely on large, expensive particle accelerators. The LIBRA team aims to replace those with compact, laser-driven sources that are cheaper, smaller, and more flexible. The core challenge is making these laser-driven beams reliable and high-quality enough for real-world use. If the technology works, the most immediate impact would be in medicine. Laser-driven proton beams could deliver cancer radiotherapy at a fraction of current cost, with less radiation shielding needed in treatment rooms. In industry, the same compact sources could perform on-site flash radiography for engineering diagnostics or test satellite components for radiation hardness without sending them to a dedicated facility. For security, the team envisions portable gamma-ray scanners that could rapidly detect hidden explosives or contraband through chemical analysis. The project is applied engineering: it takes a demonstrated laboratory phenomenon and pushes it toward the standards of beam quality and reliability that hospitals, factories, and airports require.
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Recent experiments have demonstrated that by shining powerful laser beams on small physical targets (e.g. metals, plastics or liquids), intense energetic beams of ionizing radiation (e.g. beams of ions, protons, neutrons, electrons, gamma and x-rays) are produced. The type of radiation emitted depends on the dimensions and composition of the targets; these factors also determine the unique spatial and temporal properties of the radiation sources, which have an extremely small size (of micrometer order - a millionth of a meter) and emit ultra-short radiation bursts (of picosecond duration, i.e. a millionth of a millionth of a second). Development of basic source technology will provide compact and flexible sources with optimal properties for use in industrial and medical context. We identify protons, ions and gamma rays as the products with the highest potential benefit to society, and will concentrate our efforts on developing sources of these radiation types. Applications of this technology are envisaged in the following areas:Medicine - improved cancer treatment using laser-energised protons and ions, at a significantly lower cost than currently achieved and with reduced radiation shielding requirements;radiobiology studies using multiple simultaneous radiations to simulate cosmic ray effects during air and space travelIndustry - in-situ flash radiography, satellite radiation hardness testing, engineering diagnostics, semiconductor production and manufacturing controlScience - opportunities for versatile production of intense, synchronised beams from a robust and compact source, allowing novel experiments requiring simultaneous delivery of different types of radiation (pump-probe experiments).Security - rapid imaging detection of hidden materials/explosives using gamma-ray tomography and activation techniques for rapid chemical analysis.The proposed project aims to develop the relevant technology for high-flux, high-repetition source delivery and characterisation, while achieving the standards of output beam quality and reliability essential for the above applications. These will be achieved via a combination of innovative developments in target production and delivery, detector technology, beam property optimization and control.
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