Abstract. Intense laser–plasma interactions produce high brightness beams of gamma rays, neutrons and ions and have the potential to deliver accelerating gradients more than 1000 times higher than conventional accelerator technology, and on a tabletop scale. This paper demonstrates one of the exciting applications of this technology, namely for transmutation studies of long-lived radioactive waste. We report the laser-driven photo-transmutation of long-lived ¹²⁹I with a half-life of 15.7 million years to ¹²⁸I with a half-life of 25 min. In addition, an integrated cross-section of 97 ± 40 mbarns for the reaction ¹²⁹I(γ, n)¹²⁸I is determined from the measured ratio of the (γ, n) induced ¹²⁸I and ¹²⁶I activities. The potential for affordable, easy to shield, tabletop laser technology for nuclear transmutation studies is highlighted.

Print publication: Issue 18 (21 September 2003)
Received 12 August 2003
Published 3 September 2003