M2 Plasmas Lasers Accelerateurs Tokamaks - Large facilities

The GI-PLATO programme prepares high-level scientists in physics and technologies involved in current or under development large-scale research facilities: accelerators, intense lasers, radiation sources and magnetic fusion machines. These devices are manipulating high densities of energy and power, leading to the formation of plasmas, relativistic particles, and high magnetic field, radiation and particle fluxes. The extreme conditions obtained with these machines in turn become potential sources of particles and radiation with unique properties that are useful for research.

Specialists trained in this field will go on to work in research, engineering, integration and project management in connection with major research programmes in particle physics (superconducting cavity accelerators, advanced concepts in laser particle acceleration), radiation (synchrotrons and free-electron lasers, radiation-matter interaction, attosecond sources) and hot plasma physics (magnetic and inertial confinement nuclear fusion, high-intensity laser interaction).

Some of these major scientific facilities are located within the Saclay plateau, such as the SOLEIL synchrotron, the APOLLON laser and other high-power lasers, the accelerators at the IRFU (Institute for Research into the Fundamental Laws of the Universe) in Saclay and the IJClab (Irène Joliot Curie Laboratory) in Orsay. In addition, many laboratories in the Paris-Saclay area collaborate with major national and European facilities such as CERN, ITER, the MegaJoule laser, GANIL, X-FEL and the ELI consortium. Supported by the CEA and INSTN, the Master's programme offers leading-edge training in the physics and technologies involved in magnetic and inertial confinement fusion. At the same time, the Master's programme also offers leading-edge training in the physics and technology of high-power lasers.

Inspired by the spirit behind the founding of Paris-Saclay University, this programme is aimed at students from both the University and leading engineering schools. University students will be able to complete their physics training and acquire additional experimental and technical skills. Similarly, engineering students interested in physics research will be able to supplement their engineering training with in-depth study of fundamental physics and gain access to major scientific facilities in the Paris-Saclay area, as well as at the national and European levels. Large research instruments bring together many disciplines, and their constant evolution is leading to the emergence of more and more hybrid concepts, such as Compton scattering gamma-ray sources, which combine electron accelerators and high-power lasers. Finally, disruptive technologies, the result of fundamental research conducted with these instruments, promise new types of scientific facilities: spallation neutron sources, neutrino or muon sources, attosecond X-ray pulse sources, and plasma wakefield particle acceleration. To meet current and future challenges, the GI PLATO programme aims to provide its students with a broad fundamental, applied and technical scientific culture.

This programme therefore offers a core curriculum of fundamental courses on the physics used in large research infrastructures: relativity, statistical physics, magnetohydrodynamics, plasma physics, laser physics, accelerator physics, laser-plasma interaction, and tokamak physics. Alongside these relatively fundamental courses, students will discover the advanced technologies used in these machines, such as accelerator systems, high-power laser chains, magnetism, superconductivity, vacuum, cryogenics, and microwave power sources.