The Unsung Heroes of Innovation: Lawrence Livermore’s ICMuS2 Team
In the vast landscape of scientific advancements, not all heroes wear lab coats in the spotlight. Some work quietly, making strides that are as impactful as they are overlooked. The Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory team, comprising Drew Willard, Brendan Reagan, and Issa Tamer, exemplifies this quiet excellence.
These dedicated scientists are the driving force behind the Intense and Compact Muon Sources for Science and Security (ICMuS2) project. With funding from the Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency (DARPA), their work aims to revolutionize muon-based imaging technology. While this might sound like science fiction to some, it’s a real-world innovation with far-reaching implications for both scientific discovery and national security.
Why Muons Matter
Muons, subatomic particles similar to electrons but much heavier, have unique properties that allow them to penetrate materials more effectively. This makes them invaluable for imaging applications where traditional methods fall short. Whether it’s inspecting critical infrastructure, detecting hidden contraband, or exploring the mysteries of the universe, muon-based imaging has the potential to reshape how we see and understand the world around us.
The Team’s Mission
Under the leadership of Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory, Willard, Reagan, and Tamer are working to make muon imaging more compact, intense, and accessible. The ICMuS2 project isn’t just about creating a better imaging tool—it’s about pushing the boundaries of what’s possible in security, science, and beyond.
Quiet but Essential
While their work might not make headlines, its impact is profound. This team’s efforts contribute to safer borders, more reliable infrastructure, and groundbreaking scientific research. They remind us that the greatest innovations often come from those who focus on the work, not the recognition.
In a world that celebrates the popular, let’s take a moment to appreciate the profound contributions of this remarkable team. The future they’re shaping might just surprise us all.
By: DALL-E
From left: Lawrence Livermore team members on the Intense and Compact Muon Sources for Science and Security (ICMuS2) project, Drew Willard, Brendan Reagan, and Issa Tamer, work on a Livermore-led project to advance muon-based imaging in a project funded by the Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency. Photo by Jason Laurea.Lawrence Livermore National
Laboratory has a rich history in laser research since the pursuit of inertial confinement fusion (ICF) began decades ago.
In addition to Livermore’s December 2022 ignition achievement at the National Ignition Facility (NIF), the Laboratory’s laser science research has led to several significant technological advances, including designing and building ultraintense, high-average-power lasers. Recent developments using these short-pulse lasers involve efficiently generating beams of particles—electrons, protons, neutrons, x rays, and muons. The types of particles produced depend on the strength, shape, and pulse of the laser beam, the materials used in the laser target (a tiny capsule holding matter that is heated to more than 3 million degrees Celsius), and the interaction between the laser and those materials.
Laser-driven particle sources are opening frontiers in inertial fusion energy, high-energy-density (HED) science, material science, radiography, medical therapies, and non-destructive evaluation. The Laboratory is researching and testing methods to use lasers as particle sources in a more efficient manner and to better understand what parameters impact the stability and repeatability for different applications. Within Livermore’s National Ignition Facility and Photon Sciences (NIF&PS) program, Advanced Photon Technologies (APT) addresses the national security mission by providing fundamental laser and particle research, designing and building laser systems, and engineering system integration using x rays, neutrons, and muons.
Livermore’s expertise in relevant laser systems, capabilities for studying the physics of laser–matter interaction, and the mission for advancing laser research enable the Laboratory to lead the world in laser-driven particle sources. “Working on particle sources to support Livermore’s mission is a very consequential role for us,” says James McCarrick, program director for the HED and Photon Systems element in NIF&PS.
“We have expertise to generate laser-driven particle sources and to then work in the application space, both for the National Nuclear Security Administration, other government entities such as the Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency [DARPA] under the Department of Defense, and the broader research community.”
Radiography Applications
Laser-driven sources at Livermore support ICF research at NIF, the world’s most energetic laser, which contains the Advanced Radiographic Capability (ARC), the world’s most energetic short-pulse laser. ARC provides a diagnostic tool to see through the fast moving, small feature, and dense NIF target, evaluating the shape of the target as it compresses and examining material response to stresses at extreme conditions. ARC is a highly capable driver of high-energy, high-flux particle beams to probe or generate HED environments. The ARC laser beamlet interacts with a thin metal foil to generate fast electrons, which pass through the foil and create an electric field that accelerates protons from the residual layer to form a proton beam that can then be used to image material or electromagnetic fields. (See S&TR, September 2018, Two World-Class Lasers Combine to Power Applications.)
Livemore researchers are using ARC to develop laser-based x-ray and neutron sources for radiography, an imaging technique that uses x rays, gamma rays, or similar ionizing or non-ionizing radiation to view the internal form of an object. Radiography is used to conduct x-ray imaging of humans and to inspect flaws or cracks within materials that may not be visible to the naked eye. Among other uses at Livermore, radiography using laser-produced particles offers new opportunities for non-destructive evaluation of weapons components and the complex internal structures of 3D-printed materials.
To produce multimodal laser-driven particle sources, an intense laser pulse is focused onto a high-atomic number (Z) target, which launches protons and x rays toward the low-Z catcher and test object. While the x rays largely pass through the low-Z catcher, the protons can react with it to produce a short, intense pulse of neutrons. The x rays and neutrons penetrate the static radiographic object and are detected by scintillators and optical arrays providing internal images of the object. Since x rays and neutrons interact with different materials in distinctive ways, imaging both allows researchers to evaluate an object made of multiple materials more effectively.
More: Targeting Lasers as Sources.
Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory
