Sprecher
Beschreibung
With the goal of investigating the creation of extremely neutron rich isotopes around the waiting point of the rapid neutron capture process (r-process) at N=126, Habs et al. [1] proposed the so-called fission-fusion reaction mechanism. This mechanism exploits the inherently nearly solid-state bunch density of laser ion accelerated ions, resulting high cross-sections for the creation of exotic nuclei close to the magic neutron number N=126.
One necessary prerequisite for the realization of the fission-fusion reaction mechanism is gaining a better understanding how laser accelerated protons induce fission in a high-Z material, e.g., Uranium-238. For this purpose, we implemented, based on the previous designs at other facilities [2,3], a gas-based fission-fragment transportation system and developed an aerosol transport system for the transfer of non-volatile fission products generated by irradiating Uranium-238 targets with laser accelerated protons ca. 15 meter away from the EMP-contaminated target area to a well-shielded HPGe detector for y spectroscopy.
In our latest experimental campaigns conducted at the Centre for Advanced Laser Applications (CALA) using the ATLAS-3000 laser system (central wavelength 800 nm, pulse length 25 fs, energy per pulse <60 J) we successfully detected volatile and non-volatile fission products employing our transportation system. Currently, we are focusing on improving the yield of the generated fission products by varying parameters such as laser energy and transport medium.
Funded by the BMFTR under Grant No. 05P24WM2. We acknowledge the GSI target lab (Dr. Bettina Lommel) for providing the Uranium targets.
[1] D. Habs et al., Appl. Phys. B 103, 471-484 (2011)
[2] P. Boller et al., Sci. Rep. 10, 17183 (2020)
[3] J. Burggraf et al., Nuc. Inst. 1053, 168369 (2023)
