High repetition rate laser systems: targets, diagnostics and radiation protection

Accessing the high repetition regime of ultra intense laser-target interactions at small or moderate laser energies is now possible at a large number of facilities worldwide. New projects such as HiPER and ELI promise to extend this regime to the high energy realm at the multi-kJ level. This opportunity raises several issues on how best to approach this new regime of operation in a safe and efficient way. At the same time, a new class of experiments or a new generation of secondary sources of particles and radiation may become accessible, provided that target fabrication and diagnostics are capable of handling this rep-rated regime. In this paper, we explore this scenario and analyse existing and perspective techniques that promise to address some of the above issues.