Feasibility Study of High-Average-Power Lasers for Laser-Driven Neutron Sources

High-average-power femtosecond lasers with terawatt and petawatt peak powers are essential for the practical achievement of such new technologies as laser-driven accelerators and laser-driven neutron sources. Although the average power of petawatt lasers is currently approaching 100 W, estimates suggest that an average power of the order of 10 kW is required for laser-driven neutron sources. To discuss the feasibility of a petawatt laser with an ultrahigh average power of 10 kW, we present two directions of disk and fiber lasers and propose a conceptual design of a Ti:sapphire chirped-pulseamplification system with an output pulse energy of 100 J and a repetition rate of 100 Hz.