High average power laser plasma acceleration at DESY

Laser-plasma acceleration (LPA) is a promising technology for future compact accelerators. However, the low repetition rate (typically few Hz) of today’s high-power laser systems prevents reaching the average power required by applications and hinders the implementation of fast feedback systems to mitigate beam instabilities. To this end, DESY has established a dedicated research program on high-average power LPA. Our flagship project KALDERA pursues the development of a new laser tailored to plasma acceleration. Based on Ti:Sa technology, the system will deliver pulses at 100 TW peak power at up to 1 kHz repetition rate and by that enable the application of active stabilisation techniques to enhance LPA performance. This talk will report on the development and commissioning of MAGMA, the first LPA powered by KALDERA. It will also introduce the BEETLE project which explores the use of post-compressed Yb-lasers as future alternative to scale the average power of LPA even further. Finally, the talk will present our group’s recent results on active energy compression — a major milestone toward realizing a laser-plasma-based injector for PETRA IV — and outline the future plan for advancing this goal.