The XENON100 experiment and the evolution to the ton scale

The XENON100 detector is a liquid xenon TPC dedicated to dark matter searches which is successfully operating in the Gran Sasso Laboratory of INFN. After the publication, in 2011, of the analysis of 100.2 day of data, the experiment has been running in improved background conditions, collecting more than 200 day of useful data, whose analysis will be unblinded in Summer 2012. In these proceedings, I will describe the main characteristics of the XENON100 detector. In the second part, I will describe the next generation XENON1T experiment, whose construction will begin in 2012.