Radioprotection of high-power laser facilities

20 August 2013

In the last years, it was observed a rapid increase of ultrahigh intensity laser facilities worldwide. VEGA is the first ultrahigh intensity laser to become operative in Spain. One advantage of the newly emerging laser acceleration is its unique ability to reach extremely high energies that are far beyond in any other conventional methods. Another advantage is the possibility of producing rather compact machines, at least when compared to very big synchrotron. Because of these very attractive features, it is expected in the future a further increase of laboratories with intense laser capability.

The key feature of these facilities, as far as radiation protection is concerned, is the production of intense photon and particles bursts, whose duration is around tens or hundreds of femtoseconds. Radiation fields with such time structure are very challenging to measure. The consequence is that the radiation protection cannot only rely on the standard tools and instruments commonly used for dose assessment of workers and for RP activity in general and there is the pressing need to develop new instrumentation/technique to confirm the reliability of the existing ones.

The Centro de Láseres Pulsados is aware of its necessary contribution in this field, which, among its other activities, we highlight the participation to the EURADOS, a non-profit association for promoting research and development and European cooperation in the field of the dosimetry of ionizing radiation.

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