Key facilities and resources: Apollon

Apollon is a facility built around lasers of unparalleled power. It is devoted to experiments involving ultrahigh-intensity laser-matter interactions, with end applications in the fields of energy, biology, medicine and nuclear energy. The main purpose of this test platform is to produce a beam with an intensity of 150 joules and a duration of about 15 femtoseconds in order to achieve a power of 10 petawatts. Launched in 2007, the project is the result of collaboration between about ten laboratories on the Plateau de Saclay, and is managed by a team from the École Polytechnique Intense Lasers Laboratory.