The objective of the Apollon project is the generation of 10 PW peak power pulses of 15 fs at 1 shot/minute. In this paper the Apollon facility design, the technological challenges and the current progress of the project will be presented.

An experiment shows that equations of state of solid matter at pressure P= 10–50 Mbar can be studied by using lasers with pulse energy E≈100J. Laser beams smoothed by phase-zone plates produced high quality, planar shock waves in two-step, two-material targets, allowing simultaneous measurements of the shock velocities in the two materials. By the use of the impedance-matching technique, the relative consistency of the equations of state of these materials can be tested, or a relative equation of state data can be measured. Pressures higher than 35 Mbar were achieved in gold