The hundreds GV/m longitudinal electric fields produced in laser plasmas can be used to generate, in a compact and reproducible way, energetic electron beams with tuneable parameters. In those laser plasma accelerators, different injection schemes have been demonstrated such as the forced laser wake field [1], the bubble/blow out regime [2], or the colliding laser pulses [3] that offers the possibility to control the electron beam parameters. These electron beams with peak current of a few kA [4] are of interest for a very broad range of applications in medical, biological, chemistry or material science domains [5]. They are also of major interest for the production of very bright X/gamma ray beams [6]. I report here on the evolution of laser plasma accelerators developed at LOA and on very recent achievements we performed on the applications side.

[1] V. Malka et al., Science 22, 298 (2002)

[2] S. P. D. Mangles et al., C. G. R. Geddes et al., J. Faure et al., Nature 431 (2004)

[3] J. Faure et al., Nature 444, 05393 (2006)

[4] O. Lundh et al., Nature Physics 7, 219-222 (2011)

[5] V. Malka et al., Nature Physics 4, 447-453 (2008)

[6] K. Ta Phuoc et al., Nature Photonics 6 (2012)