Speakers
Dan Symes
High power lasers (>100 TW) can be used as the driver for compact light sources with unique properties that are ideal for advanced imaging applications. The laser is used to create a cm-scale plasma accelerator producing femtosecond x-ray pulses with a micron-scale source size and exceptionally high brightness. X-ray emission is tunable from the few keV range up to 100s keV, suitable for phase contrast imaging of soft tissue, polymers and composites as well as denser materials. I will present examples of proof of concept imaging obtained with the Gemini Ti:Sapphire laser at the Central Laser Facility.
Daniel Symes is an experimental operations manager at STFC Rutherford Appleton Laboratory (RAL). He received his PhD at Imperial College London (2003) and worked as a postdoctoral researcher at the University of Texas at Austin before joining the Central Laser Facility at RAL. Using the Gemini laser, he is developing plasma-based particle accelerators in collaboration with teams of visiting researchers, and is particularly interested in the emergence of laser-driven x-ray sources as viable instruments for high resolution tomography. He is leading the installation of a laser-plasma accelerator capable of advanced industrial imaging at the Extreme Photonics Applications Centre, due to open at RAL in 2025. He has co-authored over 60 research papers, including a demonstration of biological microtomography using a plasma accelerator.