The Department of Physics and Astronomy is proud to present a colloquium talk featuring Dr. Christopher P. J. Barty. Dr. Barty will present his talk “Laser-based Light Sources and the Emergence of Nuclear Photonics ” on Tuesday, September 1, at 4:10 p.m. in Webster B17.
Meet with our guest speaker and enjoy refreshments before the talk at 3:50-4:10 p.m. in the foyer on floor G above the lecture hall.
Abstract: Tunable, polarized, mono-energetic, laser-like beams of x-rays and gamma-rays may be created via the optimized Compton scattering of pulsed lasers off of ultra-bright, relativistic electron beams. At x-ray energies, these extremely compact sources rival the output of the world’s largest synchrotrons, exceed the flux of the highest performance medical sources and are enabling to new techniques that may significantly reduce dose to the patient during imaging procedures and/or increase the efficacy of radiation treatments of cancer. Above 2 MeV, the peak brilliance of compact laser-Compton sources can exceed that of world’s largest synchrotrons by more than 15 orders of magnitude. These sources enable for the first time the efficient pursuit of nuclear science and applications with photon beams, i.e. Nuclear Photonics. Potential applications are numerous and include isotope-specific nuclear materials management, element-specific medical radiography and radiology, non-destructive, isotope-specific, material assay and imaging, precision spectroscopy of nuclear resonances and photon-induced fission. This presentation will review activities at the Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory related to the design and optimization of laser-Compton systems and to the development of the unique science and applications enabled by them.
Bio: Dr. Christopher P. J. Barty is the Chief Technology Officer for the National Ignition Facility and Photon Science Directorate at the Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory. At LLNL he has led efforts to develop kJ-class ultrahigh intensity lasers to probe nuclear fusion at the National Ignition Facility and has invented and developed new mono-energetic gamma-ray technologies that enable isotope-specific material detection, assay and imaging. His academic background includes B.S. degrees with honors in Chemistry, Physics and Chemical Engineering from North Carolina State University and an M.S and Ph.D. in Applied Physics from Stanford University. Dr. Barty is a Fellow of the Optical Society of America, a Fellow of Society of Photo-optical Instrumentation Engineers, a Fellow of the American Physical Society, a Senior Member of Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers and co-chair of the International Committee on Ultrahigh Intensity Lasers (ICUIL).
