LOA - Laboratoire d’Optíque Appliquée /Applied Optic Laboratory
Contact: Kim Ta Phouc
LOA is a French laboratory located in Palaiseau, near Paris. It is a CNRS laboratory combined with ENSTA and Ecole Polytechnique.
The aim of the laboratory is to develop intense femtosecond lasers and their applications. In particular, LOA has a long experience in very high intensity laser and laser-plasma interaction. LOA is a European laser facility with several lasers delivering light pulses with peak power from a few TW to hundred TW. The latest laser system can deliver two laser pulses of 60 TW (30fs) each at 1 Hz into three experimental sites essentially dedicated to laser plasma-acceleration, femtosecond X-ray sources and X-ray lasers.
The LOA groups actively involved in the LA³NET project are FLEX and SPL. FLEX is a group working on the development of femtosecond radiation sources from the xuv to the gamma rays. Betatron radiation and all optical Compton gamma ray sources were demonstrated by this group. SPL is a group working on particle acceleration in plasma. This group is at the origin of electron acceleration in the bubble regime and in the colliding pulse geometry. These two groups are internationally recognized among the leaders in these topics with numerous high impact journal publications.