Laser-driven particle beamline for applications

该研究计划是基于新型基于激光的高亮度超短粒子源的产生和使用及其应用。它将充分利用位于INRS的ALLS激光设备，该设备非常适合激光产生的粒子加速（质子、电子和中子源）。与传统的加速器源相比，这些粒子目前具有非常有趣的特性，可以在材料科学、医学、聚变能、生物学、天体物理学和文化遗产等领域得到广泛应用。该提案将受益于初步的有希望的结果以及与其他国家或国际实验室正在进行的不同合作。研究课题包括激光、传统加速器技术、先进材料和文化遗产等多个领域。为使学生、博士后和研究助理对项目相关工作和与产业（本地和国外）有许多联系的不同创新科学有一个广泛的了解，将对这些主题进行培训。具体而言，研究项目将集中在以下几个主要方面：1)开发稳定可靠的高重复率激光驱动质子束线；2)将这些质子用于应力测试材料、先进材料合成和文化遗产中改进诊断的发展；3)激光生成质子用于高亮度超短中子源；4)基于激光的超快速电子衍射（UED）实验与应用。拟议研究的好处是：(i)在与激光/加速器和材料科学未来需要密切相关的领域发展专门知识；（ii）培训学术界和工业界都非常需要的HQP；提供种子技术和专门知识，以便在魁北克和加拿大进行技术转让；通过在国内和国际上建立有效的网络，及时了解迅速扩大的激光等离子体加速和应用领域的发展情况；加强加拿大在光子学领域和材料科学革新者的作用，使加拿大成为一个关键的参与者。

The research proposal is based on the generation and use of novel laser-based high-brillance ultra-short particle sources and applications. It will make best use of the ALLS laser facility located at INRS, perfectly suited for laser-generated particle acceleration (proton, electrons and neutron sources). These particles have currently very interesting characteristics in comparison to conventional accelerator sources and allow for manifold applications in the field of material science, medicine, fusion energy, biology, astrophysics and Cultural Heritage. The proposal will profit from preliminary promising results and different ongoing collaborations with other national or international laboratories. The research topics embrace several domains such as Lasers, Conventional Accelerator technologies, Advanced Materials and Cultural Heritage. Several students, post-docs and research associate shall be trained on those topics in order to obtain a broad overview about project related work and different innovative science with many links to industry (local and abroad). More in detail, the research project will focus on the following main areas: 1) Development of a stable and reliable high-repetition rate laser-driven proton beamline; 2) Use of this protons for stress testing materials, for advanced material synthesis and for the development of improved diagnostics in the Cultural Heritage; 3) Use of laser-generated protons for high-brillance ultra-short neutron sources; 4) Laser-based Ultra-Fast Electron Diffraction (UED) experiments and applications. The benefits of the proposed research are: (i) Developing expertise in an area of great relevance to future needs in laser/accelerator and material science; (ii) Training of HQP who will be in high demand from both academia and industry; (iii) Providing seed technology and expertise for the creation of technology transfer in Quebec and Canada; (iv) Keeping abreast of developments in the rapidly expanding field of laser-plasma acceleration and applications by being effectively networked nationally and internationally; (v) Reinforcing Canada in the field of photonics and in the role material science innovator, positioning Canada as a key player.