Frothy Silver Foam And Fusion-Grade Lasers Create The World’s Brightest X-Ray

Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory (LLNL) scientists have engineered a groundbreaking X-ray source using frothy silver foam and fusion grade lasers. The brightest X-rays ever recorded, these innovations have produced twice the brilliance of any previous source.

Super bright X-rays are important in cutting edge research. They provide unprecedented insights into material structures at the atomic level, real time observation of chemical reactions, and high resolution imaging of biological samples. They are also important for studying dense matter, such as plasmas created in nuclear fusion experiments, an important LLNL research area to develop practical fusion reactors and to ensure the safety of nuclear weapons stockpiles.

This new approach uses a laser and a special silver foam target, unlike conventional X-rays which use an electron beam to bombard a metal target. The silver nanowire foam, made by suspending silver nanowires in a special mold and drying it under supercritical conditions, has a density that is almost identical to air, about one thousandth that of normal silver. The low density structure allows heat to flow rapidly, so that the entire foam cylinder can heat uniformly in just 1.5 billionths of a second. On the scale of nuclear physics, it produces an X-ray source with energy greater than 20,000 electron volts.

This breakthrough will also help to deepen understanding of heat transport and the behavior of bright, hot metal plasmas far from thermal equilibrium, beyond its applications in fusion research. “We need to rethink our assumptions about heat transport and how we calculate it in these particular metal plasmas,” said LLNL scientist Jeff Colvin. This represents a major advance in X-ray technology, and it will revolutionize both scientific research and practical applications in nuclear physics.

Leave a Reply

Your email address will not be published. Required fields are marked *