ILIL PW is the latest interaction area set up in the ILIL lab. Starting from the laser front end, the pulse is amplified and sent to the ILIL PW interaction chamber. After the optical compressor, the power beam of up to 240 TW is focused into an octagonal chamber of about 1.5 m in diameter. The chamber is equipped with two distinct focusing off-axis parabola (OAP) for both laser-driven electron acceleration experiments, through LWFA (Laser Wake-Field Acceleration), and laser-driven ion acceleration experiments, through TNSA (Target Normal Sheath Acceleration).
The interaction chamber is completely surrounded by a protective bunker for ionizing radiation, built with heavy weight concrete bricks produced with barite, and certified according to the most strict and innovative radiation protection regulations.
In the case of LWFA experiments, the beam is focused by an f / 20 OAP and reaches on the target (a supersonic gas jet available in different profiles, based on the expected accelerated particle density profile ) an intensity of 6 · 1018 W / cm2.
In the case of experiments with ions acceleration (TNSA), the target is irradiated by a beam focused by a f / 4.5 OAP, reaching an intensity of 2 · 1020 W / cm2.
