GAMMA-RAY GENERATION USING LASER-ACCELERATED ELECTRON BEAM

A compact gamma-ray source using laser-accelerated electron beam is being under development at KAERI for nuclear applications, such as, radiography, nuclear activation, photonuclear reaction, and so on. One of two different schemes, Bremsstrahlung radiation and Compton backscattering, may be selected depending on the required specification of photons and/or the energy of electron beams. Compton backscattered gamma-ray source is tunable and quasi-monochromatic and requires electron beams with its energy of higher than 100 MeV to produced MeV photons. Bremsstrahlung radiation can generate high energy photons with 20 - 30 MeV electron beams, but its spectrum is continuous. As we know, laser accelerators are good for compact size due to localized shielding at the expense of low average flux, while linear RF accelerators are good for high average flux. We present the design issues for a compact gamma-ray source at KAERI, via either Bremsstrahlung radiation or Compton backscattering, using laser accelerated electron beams for the potential nuclear applications.