2017 | AFC ACCOMPLISHMENTS 109 for characterization applications. Intense neutron sources, such as LANSCE at Los Alamos National Laboratory (LANL), provide excel- lent characterization capabilities which can significantly accelerate development and licensing of new nuclear fuel forms, such as accident tolerant fuels. Being able to charac- terize several pellets on length scales ranging from the atomic distances to macroscopic cracks and voids allows to characterize fuels pre- and post irradiation.The latter will guide destructive examination. However, at present the fuel, especially irradiated fuel, would have to be transported to LANSCE for characterization, which is both cost intensive as well as time consuming. Laser-driven neutron sources have the potential to provide such capability pool-side, both during development of fuels, e.g. by irradiation tests at ATR, as well as at power plants to provide enhanced characterization of fuel failures or as a quality control tool during fabrication. Besides characterization of Light Water Reactor (LWR) fuel pellets, pulsed neutrons have the potential to become in-process diag- nostics, e.g. for the enrichment level of the fuel feed, in next generation reactor types such as molten salt reactors. Assessing the current state- of-the-art of laser-driven neutron sources provides the NE mission to participate in technology maturation and a pathway to possible deploy- ment within the next decade. Accomplishments: The LANL Principal Investigator (PI) (S.Vogel) of this effort brought together world-leading researchers in the field of laser driven neutron sources, covering fields such as laser-plasma interaction (M. Roth, Technical University of Darmstadt, Germany, Juan Fernandez, LANL), high power lasers(W. Leemans, Lawrence Berkely National Labora- tory (LBL), C. Haefner & C. Siders/ Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory (LLNL)), laser target design (M. Roth, S. Glenzer/Stand- ford Linear Accelerator (SLAC)), and neutronics of target/moderator systems (M. Mocko/LANL) with experts in neutron-based fuel characterization (Vogel & Bourke/ LANL) to compile a comprehensive report on the potential of laser- driven neutron sources for pool-side