High-Peak Power Laser Systems at Jena: Developments and Applications

This presentation will give a review about the current status and planned develop-ments of the high-power laser systems JETI and POLARIS operational at the Insti-tute of Optics and Quantum Electronics and the Helmholtz-Institute in Jena. Further-more, results from the current experimental program carried out with these laser sys-tems, towards the acceleration of particles from laser-generated plasmas will be dis-cussed. Among others, this experimental program comprises investigations of laser wakefield acceleration (LWFA) of electrons including Jena’s unique capabilities for ultra-fast plasma imaging at the JETI40 and JETI200 systems and the acceleration of protons via target-normal sheath acceleration (TNSA) and Radiation-Pressure assisted Acceleration (RPA) using high-contrast laser pulses from the POLARIS facility.