Advances in laser-driven neutron sources and applications

Laser-driven neutron source (LDNS) is attracting interest for several reasons including (i) compactness of the source, (ii) neutron pulse shortness and (iii) transportability of laser beam. Through reviewing recent activities, we discuss the characteristics of LDNS in a comparison with accelerator-based neutron facilities (ABNF). Especially, we discuss the potential and limit of LDNS by showing that neutrons ranging from meV to MeV in energy were generated by LDNS and applied to neutron analysis and fundamental science.