Overview of PETAL, the multi-Petawatt project in the LMJ facility

Abstract

The status of the PETAL project is presented in this paper. The global architecture and performances of this facility are detailed with the first experimental results obtained on the LIL facility, and with the main steps which will allow shooting in the center of the target chamber. Some technical issues like wavefront correction, damage threshold in femtosecond regime and focusing are presented.