Development of the PETAL Laser Facility and its Diagnostic Tools

• Main Authors: Dimitri Batani, Sebastien Hulin, Jean Eric Ducret, Emmanuel d’Humieres, Vladimir Tikhonchuk et al.
• Format: Article
• Language: English
• Published: CTU Central Library 2013-01-01
• Series: Acta Polytechnica
• Subjects: plasma diagnostic; X-ray photon emission; proton radiography; particle laser acceleration; Laser MegaJoule; Petawatt laser; High Energy Density Physics; Electron spectrometer; X-ray spectrometer.
• Online Access: https://ojs.cvut.cz/ojs/index.php/ap/article/view/1721
• ISSN: 1210-2709; 1805-2363

The PETAL system (PETawatt Aquitaine Laser) is a high-energy short-pulse laser, currently in an advanced construction phase, to be combined with the French Mega-Joule Laser (LMJ). In a first operational phase (beginning in 2015 and 2016) PETAL will provide 1 kJ in 1 ps and will be coupled to the first four LMJ quads. The ultimate performance goal to reach 7PW (3.5 kJ with 0.5 ps pulses). Once in operation, LMJ and PETAL will form a unique facility in Europe for High Energy Density Physics (HEDP). PETAL is aiming at providing secondary sources of particles and radiation to diagnose the HED plasmas generated by the LMJ beams. It also will be used to create HED states by short-pulse heating of matter. Petal+ is an auxiliary project addressed to design and build diagnostics for experiments with PETAL. Within this project, three types of diagnostics are planned: a proton spectrometer, an electronspectrometer and a large-range X-ray spectrometer.