Laser Induced Nuclear Physics and Applications

Laser induced beams of protons, neutrons and gamma rays using short pulse lasers is currently important principally because of the potential applications e.g. isotope production, transmutation studies, laser induced fission, heavy ion fusion reactions, neutron production and radiography, fast ignitor and spallation studies of neutrons. Although the Strathclyde group in collaboration with teams from Imperial College and the Rutherford Appleton Laboratory have been at the forefront of many of these applications this presentation only deals with laser induced PET isotope production and laser transmutation studies. These two applications will be dealt with in separate sections.