Abstract

Laser plasma accelerators have seen an incredible development over the 2 past decades, leading to production of high electron energy close to 10 GeV. Both performance and reliability can be further improved thanks to the latest generation multi-PW lasers like the 10 PW laser of ELI-NP having performed its first shots on target few months ago. Some data about users experiments with the 3 types of beams at ELI-NP (100 TW, 1 PW, 10 PW) are presented.

In the same time, low repetition rate of these lasers prevents their use in many applications in industry and medicine where high accelerator currents are required for efficiency and speed of the process. This is why Thales and its academic partner in France LOA (Laboratoire d'Optique Appliquée) have decided to develop a new electron acceleration platform within the LAPLACE HC project, using a brand new high repetition rate TiSa laser system operating at a repetition rate of 100 Hz becoming therefore compatible with the requirements of most societal applications of electron acceleration. We present results obtained for a 200 mJ - 100 Hz TiSa laser system based on an high energy amplifier using a thick disk of TiSa crystal in active mirror configuration with backside cooling to improve the temperature gradient within the crystal. We present the latest results of an higher energy amplification stage. This amplifier, operating at room temperature, delivers more than 850 mJ per pulse at a repetition rate of 100 Hz.

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