Laboratoire d’Optique Appliquée, Palaiseau, France

Access to the LOA ultra-short and ultra-intense laser and research facilities.

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Contact: Philippe Zeitoun Email

The "Laboratoire d'Optique Appliquée" (LOA) is specialized in ultrashort, and often intense, laser physics. Ultrashort, ultra-intense lasers have opened many new pathways to investigate laser-matter interactions. In this domain, LOA installations are unique in Europe in terms of performance. One ultra-high intensity laser produces at least 10^20 W/cm2 at the focus (100 TW, 25 fs pulses), the world highest intensity at 10 Hz, thus opening up totally new regimes of physics. Moreover, several other cutting-edge laser systems allow users to benefit from a variety of laser specifications. Secondary sources ranging from mid-IR to VUV and laser-based X-ray sources also allow time-resolved experiments with femtosecond accuracy.

Research topics are: high-intensity laser-matter interaction, superdense plasmas, relativistic electron acceleration, generation of intense bursts of X-ray radiation for time-resolved diffraction studies, generation of high-order harmonics, self-guided propagation of intense femtosecond pulses as well as solid state physics and biochemistry at ultrashort timescales.

The LOA activity is mainly devoted to the development of femtosecond lasers and their applications to the study of ultrafast phenomena. A team of 12 scientists and engineers concentrates on constantly improving ultrashort laser sources to keep their performance at the leading edge of present technology. LOA has a unique collection of femtosecond laser systems ranging from low-power oscillators delivering 10 fs pulses at 100 MHz to ultra-high intensity oscillator-amplifier systems offering 10^19 W/cm2 at 10 Hz, with a pulse duration of 30 femtoseconds.

These systems are equipped with a full set of characterization apparatus including 2D optical multichannel analysers, real-time autocorrelators with a dynamic range of 106, third-order correlators having a 10^10 dynamic range, spectrometers and beam profilers.

Presently, LOA has undertaken studies of very high intensity interactions with matter using the last generation of Ti:S femtosecond laser-amplifier system.

>>> access projects performed by LOA users

LOA has expertise in the following fields of research :
• Laser-matter Interaction at ultra-high intensities : plasma studies on solid surfaces, gas jets, clusters. Relativistic effects
at ultra-high intensities; Propagation, soliton formation, magnetic field formation. Laser-induced nuclear physics. Laser
ablation studies.
• Strong field atomic and molecular physics : Multiple ionisation in the relativistic regime; Above Threshold ionization.
• Study and development of secundary sources : Ultrashort X-ray pulses; XUV generation by high harmonic generation,
Optical Field Ionization XUV lasers, laser wakefield acceleration of electron beams, laser-generated proton beams, fast
neutron bunches by cluster-explosion induced nuclear fusion.
• Applications of secundary sources : Applications of femtosecond K? X-rays to study physical, chemical or biological
femtosecond processes by time -resolved X-ray diffraction. Applications of intense femtosecond or attosecond XUV
pulses to plasma, or solid-state physics; attoscience.
• Non-linear propagation of femtosecond laser pulses, in particular in air (filamentation, self-shortening…). Applications
of self-guided beams in air, and environmental monitoring. Pulse phase retrieval and nonlinear refractive index;
measurements of transparent media. Non linear propagation of pulses in fibers.
• Non – linear optics : Coherent Excitation of low-frequency phonons, and dispersion of phonon-polaritons; Kerr effect
and dissymetrical phonons; induced modulation of the phase associated with a wavefront.
• Time -resolved nonlinear spectroscopy of chemical or biological molecules.

Research opportunities within the Laserlab access activity:

• 100 TW ultrashort Ti-Sapphire laser system (25 to 30 fs, 10 Hz), with two equipped target areas (“Salle Jaune”)
• 6 mJ, 30 fs, 1 kHz Ti: Sapphire laser system (“Salle Rouge“) with associated systems : OPA, fiber, forsterite
• Associated beam lines : XUV femtosecond beamline by high harmonic generation; fiber beamline; laser beamline.
• 0.5 TW, 110 fs, 10 Hz Ti-Sapphire laser; associated femtosecond X-ray beamline (“Salle Verte”); two target areas.
• dye, 10 Hz, 80-fs laser, (“Salle Rose”), with one target area for femtochemistry, and one for ablation studies.