Applications of laser produced ion beams to nuclear analysis of materials

Laser produced ion beams have unique characteristics which are ultra-short pulse, very low emittance, and variety of nuclear species. These characteristics could be used for analyzing various materials like low Z ion doped heavy metals or ceramics. Energies of laser produced ion beam extend from 0.1MeV to 100MeV. Therefore, various nuclear processes can be induced in the interactions of ion beams with samples. The ion beam driven nuclear analysis has been developed for many years by using various electrostatic accelerators. To explore the applicability of laser ion beam to the analysis of the Li ion battery, a proton beam with the diameter of similar to 1.0 mu m at Takasaki Ion Acceleration for Advanced Radiation Application (TIARA), JAEA was used. For the analysis, the PIGE (Particle-Induced Gamma Ray Emission) is used. The proton beam scans over Li battery electrode samples to diagnose Li density in the LiNi0.85Co0.15O2 anode. As the results, PIGE images for Li area density distributions are obtained with the spatial resolution of better than 1.5 mu m FWHM. By the Li PIGE images, the depth dependence of de-intercalation levels of Li in the anode is obtained. By the POP experiments at TIARA, it is clarified that laser produced ion beam is appropriate for the Li ion battery analysis. 41.85.Lc, 41.75.Jv, 42.62.cf