I-LUCE facility
The potential for developing compact, high-brightness particle and radiation sources have given a strong impetus to the development of the underpinning laser technology, including increasing the efficiency and repetition rate of the lasers. A result of this technological development can be seen in the new generation of ultrafast high-power laser systems working at a high repetition rate which have been built across Europe.
A new high-power laser facility called “I-LUCE” (INFN Laser indUCEd radiation production) will be realized at LNS-INFN (Laboratori Nazionali del Sud – Istituto Nazionale di Fisica Nucleare) in 2025.
The facility realization is funded by EuAPS (EuPRAXIA Advanced Photon Sources) project financed by the PNRR (Piano Nazionale Ripresa Resilienza) Italian program. The Ti:Sapphire laser will have two outputs: the first one will be a 50 TW beam line (25 fs, 1.3 J, 10 Hz) while the main beam line will be a 500 TW laser (25 fs, 12 J, 1 Hz). I-LUCE will serve two experimental areas called E1 and E2.
E2 will provide the worldwide unique combination of intense laser radiation with heavy ion beams generated with the Superconductive Cyclotron and Tandem (already installed at LNS) opening the door for interesting experiments in the field of plasma physics, nuclear physics, and atomic physics. For moderate laser beam intensities (up to 50 TW) the experimental room E2 will be also devoted to performing experimental runs dedicated to nuclear fusion and stopping power in plasma studies.
The E1 experimental room will be mainly dedicated to particles acceleration. A beamline to select, transport, and focus proton beams with energy between 5-60 MeV will be installed and optimized to perform in-air experiments. A station for electron acceleration in LWFA (Laser Wakefield Acceleration) regime will be also installed. This will be equipped with a gas-jet system, an online diagnostic, and a selection system able to select electrons with energies up to 800 MeV. In addition, stand-alone experiments with intense laser beams will be carried out for several studies such as neutron production or X-ray laser generation.
EuAPS – WP.3 High Power Laser Beamline
Working Package 3 of EUAPS project is dedicated to the realization of a high-power laser facility that will be installed at LNS-INFN (Laboratori Nazionali del Sud – Istituto Nazionale di Fisica Nucleare) and will host the highest power Italian laser. To realize this scope the WP3 is divided in five tasks:
T3.1 – Clean room realization
T3.2 – Laser design realization
T3.3 – Target System for high repetition rate
T3.4 – Plasma diagnostics
T3.5 – Secondary beam diagnostics
The facility named “I-LUCE” (INFN Laser indUCEd radiation production) will be equipped with a system to select the accelerated particles (both protons and electrons).
