Designing a Gamma Ray Factory

Monochromatic gamma rays are difficult to produce but have uses in nuclear science (e.g. detection of nuclear material). Inverse Compton Scattering (ICS) is capable of producing these high energy monochromatic gamma rays.

This project will look at the quality and number of gamma rays produced by ICS at a potential Energy Recovery Linac (ERL) at Daresbury Laboratory (1 - 40 MeV).

The appeal of this technique is the low energy spread of the gamma rays, so a focus of the work will be calculating the inherent energy spread of the gamma rays using electrons from the ERL and a laser as a source of photons to scatter.