- Physical Review Journals
All JournalsPhysics Magazine

Physical Review Research

Reuse & Permissions

It is not necessary to obtain permission to reuse this article or its components as it is available under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International license. This license permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided attribution to the author(s) and the published article's title, journal citation, and DOI are maintained. Please note that some figures may have been included with permission from other third parties. It is your responsibility to obtain the proper permission from the rights holder directly for these figures.

Export citation

Export citation

Choose format for download:

Download Citation
  • Open Access

Slice emittance preservation and focus control in a passive plasma lens

J. Björklund Svensson1,2,*, J. Beinortaitė1,3, L. Boulton1, B. Foster1,4,5, J. M. Garland1, P. González Caminal1, M. Huck1, H. Jones1, A. Kanekar1 et al.

G. Loisch1, J. Osterhoff1,†, F. Peña1,4,‡, S. Schröder1,†, M. Thévenet1, S. Wesch1, M. Wing1,3, J. C. Wood1,§, and R. D’Arcy1,5,∥

  • *Contact author: jonas.bjorklund_svensson@fysik.lu.se
  • †Present address: Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory, Berkeley, California 94720, USA.
  • ‡Present address: Ludwig-Maximilians-Universität München, Am Coulombwall 1, 85748 Garching, Germany.
  • §Contact author: jonathan.wood@desy.de
  • ∥Contact author: richard.darcy@physics.ox.ac.uk
PDF

Phys. Rev. Research 8, 033242 – Published 27 August, 2026

DOI: https://doi.org/10.1103/jjxz-3fr4

Abstract

Strong, symmetrically focusing plasma lenses are promising for accommodating the small beams associated with plasma-based accelerators and collider final foci. However, while focusing with active and passive plasma lenses has been experimentally demonstrated, compatibility with high-brightness beams relevant for applications has not. In this work, we show experimentally that passive plasma lenses can preserve free-electron-laser-quality slice emittance while focusing two orders of magnitude more strongly than quadrupole magnets, and that the focal parameters can be controlled.

View figure in article

Physics Subject Headings (PhySH)

Article Text

References (72)

  1. T. Tajima and J. M. Dawson, Laser electron accelerator, Phys. Rev. Lett. 43, 267 (1979).
  2. P. Chen, J. M. Dawson, R. W. Huff, and T. Katsouleas, Acceleration of electrons by the interaction of a bunched electron beam with a plasma, Phys. Rev. Lett. 54, 693 (1985).
  3. R. Ruth, A. Chao, P. Morton, and P. Wilson, A plasma wake field accelerator, Part. Accel. 17, 171 (1985).
  4. E. I. Simakov, V. A. Dolgashev, and S. G. Tantawi, Advances in high gradient normal conducting accelerator structures, Nucl. Instrum. Methods Phys. Res. Sect. A 907, 221 (2018).
  5. A. Ghaith, D. Oumbarek, C. Kitégi, M. Valléau, F. Marteau, and M.-E. Couprie, Permanent magnet-based quadrupoles for plasma acceleration sources, Instruments 3, 27 (2019).
  6. M. J. Hogan, C. D. Barnes, C. E. Clayton, F. J. Decker, S. Deng, P. Emma, C. Huang, R. H. Iverson, D. K. Johnson, C. Joshi, T. Katsouleas, P. Krejcik, W. Lu, K. A. Marsh, W. B. Mori, P. Muggli, C. L. O’Connell, E. Oz, R. H. Siemann, and D. Walz, Multi-GeV energy gain in a plasma-wakefield accelerator, Phys. Rev. Lett. 95, 054802 (2005).
  7. I. Blumenfeld, C. E. Clayton, F.-J. Decker, M. J. Hogan, C. Huang, R. Ischebeck, R. Iverson, C. Joshi, T. Katsouleas, N. Kirby, W. Lu, K. A. Marsh, W. B. Mori, P. Muggli, E. Oz, R. H. Siemann, D. Walz, and M. Zhou, Energy doubling of 42 GeV electrons in a metre-scale plasma wakefield accelerator, Nature (London) 445, 741 (2007).
  8. C. Aniculaesei et al., The acceleration of a high-charge electron bunch to 10 GeV in a 10-cm nanoparticle-assisted wakefield accelerator, Matter Radiat. Extremes 9, 014001 (2024).
  9. A. Picksley, J. Stackhouse, C. Benedetti, K. Nakamura, H. E. Tsai, R. Li, B. Miao, J. E. Shrock, E. Rockafellow, H. M. Milchberg, C. B. Schroeder, J. van Tilborg, E. Esarey, C. G. R. Geddes, and A. J. Gonsalves, Matched guiding and controlled injection in dark-current-free, 10-GeV-class, channel-guided laser-plasma accelerators, Phys. Rev. Lett. 133, 255001 (2024).
  10. M. Litos et al., High-efficiency acceleration of an electron beam in a plasma wakefield accelerator, Nature (London) 515, 92 (2014).
  11. C. A. Lindstrøm, J. M. Garland, S. Schröder, L. Boulton, G. Boyle, J. Chappell, R. D’Arcy, P. Gonzalez, A. Knetsch, V. Libov, G. Loisch, A. Martinez de la Ossa, P. Niknejadi, K. Põder, L. Schaper, B. Schmidt, B. Sheeran, S. Wesch, J. Wood, and J. Osterhoff, Energy-spread preservation and high efficiency in a plasma-wakefield accelerator, Phys. Rev. Lett. 126, 014801 (2021).
  12. M. Kirchen, S. Jalas, P. Messner, P. Winkler, T. Eichner, L. Hübner, T. Hülsenbusch, L. Jeppe, T. Parikh, M. Schnepp, and A. R. Maier, Optimal beam loading in a laser-plasma accelerator, Phys. Rev. Lett. 126, 174801 (2021).
  13. F. Peña, C. A. Lindstrøm, J. Beinortaitė, J. Björklund Svensson, L. Boulton, S. Diederichs, B. Foster, J. M. Garland, P. G. Caminal, G. Loisch, S. Schröder, M. Thévenet, S. Wesch, J. C. Wood, J. Osterhoff, and R. D’Arcy, Energy depletion and re-acceleration of driver electrons in a plasma-wakefield accelerator, Phys. Rev. Res. 6, 043090 (2024).
  14. W. T. Wang, W. T. Li, J. S. Liu, Z. J. Zhang, R. Qi, C. H. Yu, J. Q. Liu, M. Fang, Z. Y. Qin, C. Wang, Y. Xu, F. X. Wu, Y. X. Leng, R. X. Li, and Z. Z. Xu, High-brightness high-energy electron beams from a laser wakefield accelerator via energy chirp control, Phys. Rev. Lett. 117, 124801 (2016).
  15. A. R. Maier, N. M. Delbos, T. Eichner, L. Hübner, S. Jalas, L. Jeppe, S. W. Jolly, M. Kirchen, V. Leroux, P. Messner, M. Schnepp, M. Trunk, P. A. Walker, C. Werle, and P. Winkler, Decoding sources of energy variability in a laser-plasma accelerator, Phys. Rev. X 10, 031039 (2020).
  16. J. Wood et al., Progress towards high-quality, high-repetition-rate plasma acceleration at FLASHForward, in Proceedings of the 15th International Particle Accelerator Conference (JACoW Publishing, Geneva, 2024), pp. 541–544.
  17. P. Winkler, M. Trunk, L. Hübner, A. M. de la Ossa, S. Jalas, M. Kirchen, I. Agapov, S. A. Antipov, R. Brinkmann, T. Eichner, A. Ferran Pousa, T. Hülsenbusch, G. Palmer, M. Schnepp, K. Schubert, M. Thévenet, P. A. Walker, C. Werle, W. P. Leemans, and A. R. Maier, Active energy compression of a laser-plasma electron beam, Nature (London) 640, 907 (2025).
  18. W. Wang, K. Feng, L. Ke, C. Yu, Y. Xu, R. Qi, Y. Chen, Z. Qin, Z. Zhang, M. Fang, J. Liu, K. Jiang, H. Wang, C. Wang, X. Yang, F. Wu, Y. Leng, J. Liu, R. Li, and Z. Xu, Free-electron lasing at 27 nanometres based on a laser wakefield accelerator, Nature (London) 595, 516 (2021).
  19. R. Pompili et al., Free-electron lasing with compact beam-driven plasma wakefield accelerator, Nature (London) 605, 659 (2022).
  20. M. Labat et al., Seeded free-electron laser driven by a compact laser plasma accelerator, Nat. Photon. 17, 150 (2023).
  21. S. K. Barber et al., Greater than 1000-fold gain in a free-electron laser driven by a laser-plasma accelerator with high reliability, Phys. Rev. Lett. 135, 055001 (2025).
  22. J. B. Rosenzweig, B. Breizman, T. Katsouleas, and J. J. Su, Acceleration and focusing of electrons in two-dimensional nonlinear plasma wake fields, Phys. Rev. A 44, R6189 (1991).
  23. W. Lu, C. Huang, M. Zhou, W. B. Mori, and T. Katsouleas, Nonlinear theory for relativistic plasma wakefields in the blowout regime, Phys. Rev. Lett. 96, 165002 (2006).
  24. C. A. Lindstrøm, J. Beinortaitė, J. Björklund Svensson, L. Boulton, J. Chappell, S. Diederichs, B. Foster, J. M. Garland, P. González Caminal, G. Loisch, F. Peña, S. Schröder, M. Thévenet, S. Wesch, M. Wing, J. C. Wood, R. D’Arcy, and J. Osterhoff, Emittance preservation in a plasma-wakefield accelerator, Nat. Commun. 15, 6097 (2024).
  25. E. D. Courant and H. S. Snyder, Theory of the alternating-gradient synchrotron, Ann. Phys. (NY) 3, 1 (1958).
  26. M. Migliorati, A. Bacci, C. Benedetti, E. Chiadroni, M. Ferrario, A. Mostacci, L. Palumbo, A. R. Rossi, L. Serafini, and P. Antici, Intrinsic normalized emittance growth in laser-driven electron accelerators, Phys. Rev. Spec. Top. Accele. Beams 16, 011302 (2013).
  27. J. van Tilborg, S. Steinke, C. G. R. Geddes, N. H. Matlis, B. H. Shaw, A. J. Gonsalves, J. V. Huijts, K. Nakamura, J. Daniels, C. B. Schroeder, C. Benedetti, E. Esarey, S. S. Bulanov, N. A. Bobrova, P. V. Sasorov, and W. P. Leemans, Active plasma lensing for relativistic laser-plasma-accelerated electron beams, Phys. Rev. Lett. 115, 184802 (2015).
  28. P. Chen, A possible final focusing mechanism for linear colliders, Part. Accel. 20, 171 (1987).
  29. C. A. Lindstrøm, E. Adli, G. Boyle, R. Corsini, A. E. Dyson, W. Farabolini, S. M. Hooker, M. Meisel, J. Osterhoff, J.-H. Röckemann, L. Schaper, and K. N. Sjobak, Emittance preservation in an aberration-free active plasma lens, Phys. Rev. Lett. 121, 194801 (2018).
  30. K. N. Sjobak, E. Adli, R. Corsini, W. Farabolini, G. Boyle, C. Lindstrøm, M. Meisel, J. Osterhoff, J.-H. Röckemann, L. Schaper, and A. E. Dyson, Strong focusing gradient in a linear active plasma lens, Phys. Rev. Accel. Beams 24, 121306 (2021).
  31. J. van Tilborg, S. K. Barber, C. Benedetti, C. B. Schroeder, F. Isono, H.-E. Tsai, C. G. R. Geddes, and W. P. Leemans, Comparative study of active plasma lenses in high-quality electron accelerator transport lines, Phys. Plasmas 25, 056702 (2018).
  32. C. A. Lindstrøm and E. Adli, Analytic plasma wakefield limits for active plasma lenses, arXiv:1802.02750.
  33. R. Pompili et al., Acceleration and focusing of relativistic electron beams in a compact plasma device, Phys. Rev. E 109, 055202 (2024).
  34. C. A. Lindstrøm and M. Thévenet, Emittance preservation in advanced accelerators, J. Instrum. 17, P05016 (2022).
  35. J. S. T. Ng, P. Chen, H. Baldis, P. Bolton, D. Cline, W. Craddock, C. Crawford, F. J. Decker, C. Field, Y. Fukui, V. Kumar, R. Iverson, F. King, R. E. Kirby, K. Nakajima, R. Noble, A. Ogata, P. Raimondi, D. Walz, and A. W. Weidemann, Observation of plasma focusing of a 28.5 GeV positron beam, Phys. Rev. Lett. 87, 244801 (2001).
  36. C. A. Lindstrøm, Staging of plasma-wakefield accelerators, Phys. Rev. Accel. Beams 24, 014801 (2021).
  37. M. C. Thompson, H. Badakov, J. B. Rosenzweig, G. Travish, N. Barov, P. Piot, R. Fliller, G. M. Kazakevich, J. Santucci, J. Li, and R. Tikhoplav, Observations of low-aberration plasma lens focusing of relativistic electron beams at the underdense threshold, Phys. Plasmas 17, 073105 (2010).
  38. C. Thaury, E. Guillaume, A. Döpp, R. Lehe, A. Lifschitz, K. Ta Phuoc, J. Gautier, J.-P. Goddet, A. Tafzi, A. Flacco, F. Tissandier, S. Sebban, A. Rousse, and V. Malka, Demonstration of relativistic electron beam focusing by a laser-plasma lens, Nat. Commun. 6, 6860 (2015).
  39. S. Kuschel, D. Hollatz, T. Heinemann, O. Karger, M. B. Schwab, D. Ullmann, A. Knetsch, A. Seidel, C. Rödel, M. Yeung, M. Leier, A. Blinne, H. Ding, T. Kurz, D. J. Corvan, A. Sävert, S. Karsch, M. C. Kaluza, B. Hidding, and M. Zepf, Demonstration of passive plasma lensing of a laser wakefield accelerated electron bunch, Phys. Rev. Accel. Beams 19, 071301 (2016).
  40. A. Marocchino et al., Experimental characterization of the effects induced by passive plasma lens on high brightness electron bunches, Appl. Phys. Lett. 111, 184101 (2017).
  41. J. Björklund Svensson, D. Guénot, J. Ferri, H. Ekerfelt, I. G. González, A. Persson, K. Svendsen, L. Veisz, and O. Lundh, Low-divergence femtosecond X-ray pulses from a passive plasma lens, Nat. Phys. 17, 639 (2021).
  42. Y.-Y. Chang, J. C. Cabadağ, A. Debus, A. Ghaith, M. LaBerge, R. Pausch, S. Schöbel, P. Ufer, U. Schramm, and A. Irman, Reduction of the electron-beam divergence of laser wakefield accelerators by integrated plasma lenses, Phys. Rev. Appl. 20, L061001 (2023).
  43. C. Gustafsson, E. Löfquist, K. Svendsen, A. Angella, A. Persson, and O. Lundh, Combined plasma lens and rephasing stage for a laser wakefield accelerator, Sci. Rep. 14, 26286 (2024).
  44. S. Y. Lee, Accelerator Physics, 4th ed. (World Scientific, Singapore, 2019), Eq. (2.41).
  45. R. D’Arcy et al., FLASHForward: Plasma wakefield accelerator science for high-average-power applications, Philos. Trans. R. Soc. A 377, 20180392 (2019).
  46. S. Schreiber and B. Faatz, The free-electron laser FLASH, High Power Laser Sci. Eng. 3, e20 (2015).
  47. S. Schröder, K. Ludwig, A. Aschikhin, R. D’Arcy, M. Dinter, P. Gonzalez Caminal, S. Karstensen, A. Knetsch, V. Libov, C. A. Lindstrøm, F. Marutzky, P. Niknejadi, A. Rahali, L. Schaper, A. Schleiermacher, B. Schmidt, S. Thiele, A. d. Z. Wagner, S. Wesch, and J. Osterhoff, Tunable and precise two-bunch generation at FLASHForward, J. Phys.: Conf. Ser. 1596, 012002 (2020).
  48. J. B. Rosenzweig, A. M. Cook, A. Scott, M. C. Thompson, and R. B. Yoder, Effects of ion motion in intense beam-driven plasma wakefield accelerators, Phys. Rev. Lett. 95, 195002 (2005).
  49. W. An, W. Lu, C. Huang, X. Xu, M. J. Hogan, C. Joshi, and W. B. Mori, Ion motion induced emittance growth of matched electron beams in plasma wakefields, Phys. Rev. Lett. 118, 244801 (2017).
  50. J. M. Garland, G. Tauscher, S. Bohlen, G. J. Boyle, R. D’Arcy, L. Goldberg, K. Põder, L. Schaper, B. Schmidt, and J. Osterhoff, Combining laser interferometry and plasma spectroscopy for spatially resolved high-sensitivity plasma density measurements in discharge capillaries, Rev. Sci. Instrum. 92, 013505 (2021).
  51. S. Schröder, C. A. Lindstrøm, S. Bohlen, G. Boyle, R. D’Arcy, S. Diederichs, M. J. Garland, P. González, A. Knetsch, V. Libov, P. Niknejadi, K. Põder, L. Schaper, B. Schmidt, B. Sheeran, G. Tauscher, S. Wesch, J. Zemella, M. Zeng, and J. Osterhoff, High-resolution sampling of beam-driven plasma wakefields, Nat. Commun. 11, 5984 (2020).
  52. A. S. Müller, Description of beam-matter interaction in the covariance matrix formalism: Application to modification of emittance and Twiss parameters, CERN report PS 2001-0013, CERN, Geneva, Switzerland, 2001.
  53. P. Manwani, Y. Kang, J. Mann, B. Naranjo, G. Andonian, and J. B. Rosenzweig, Analysis of the blowout plasma wakefields produced by drive beams with elliptical symmetry, Phys. Rev. Lett. 135, 095001 (2025).
  54. M. G. Minty and F. Zimmermann, Measurement and Control of Charged Particle Beams, Particle Acceleration and Detection (Springer, Berlin, 2003).
  55. T. Mehrling, J. Grebenyuk, F. S. Tsung, K. Floettmann, and J. Osterhoff, Transverse emittance growth in staged laser-wakefield acceleration, Phys. Rev. Spec. Top. Accel. Beams 15, 111303 (2012).
  56. C. Doss, E. Adli, R. Ariniello, J. Cary, S. Corde, B. Hidding, M. Hogan, K. Hunt-Stone, C. Joshi, K. Marsh, J. Rosenzweig, N. Vafaei-Najafabadi, V. Yakimenko, and M. Litos, Laser-ionized, beam-driven, underdense, passive thin plasma lens, Phys. Rev. Accel. Beams 22, 111001 (2019).
  57. K. Oide, Synchrotron-radiation limit on the focusing of electron beams, Phys. Rev. Lett. 61, 1713 (1988).
  58. O. R. Blanco, R. Tomás, and P. Bambade, Beam focusing limitation from synchrotron radiation in two dimensions, Phys. Rev. Accel. Beams 19, 021002 (2016).
  59. R. Ariniello, C. E. Doss, K. Hunt-Stone, J. R. Cary, and M. Litos, Transverse beam dynamics in a plasma density ramp, Phys. Rev. Accel. Beams 22, 041304 (2019).
  60. R. Ariniello, C. E. Doss, V. Lee, C. Hansel, J. R. Cary, and M. D. Litos, Chromatic transverse dynamics in a nonlinear plasma accelerator, Phys. Rev. Res. 4, 043120 (2022).
  61. J. Björklund Svensson, J. Beinortaitė, L. Boulton, B. Foster, J. M. Garland, P. González Caminal, M. Huck, H. Jones, A. Kanekar, G. Loisch, J. Osterhoff, F. Peña, S. Schröder, M. Thévenet, S. Wesch, M. Wing, J. C. Wood, and R. D’Arcy, Data and code for “Slice emittance preservation and focus control in a passive plasma lens”, Zenodo, 2026, https://doi.org/10.5281/zenodo.21418379.
  62. A. F. Pousa, R. Assmann, and A. M. de la Ossa, Wake-T: A fast particle tracking code for plasma-based accelerators, J. Phys.: Conf. Ser. 1350, 012056 (2019).
  63. S. Diederichs, C. Benedetti, A. Huebl, R. Lehe, A. Myers, A. Sinn, J.-L. Vay, W. Zhang, and M. Thévenet, HiPACE++: A portable, 3D quasi-static particle-in-cell code, Comput. Phys. Commun. 278, 108421 (2022).
  64. K. Floettmann, Some basic features of the beam emittance, Phys. Rev. Spec. Top Accel. Beams 6, 034202 (2003).
  65. B. W. S. L. Montague, Linear Optics for Improved Chromaticity Correction, Technical Report CERN-LEP-Note-165, CERN, Geneva, 1979.
  66. C. A. Lindstrøm and E. Adli, Design of general apochromatic drift-quadrupole beam lines, Phys. Rev. Accel. Beams 19, 071002 (2016).
  67. P. Raimondi and A. Seryi, Novel final focus design for future linear colliders, Phys. Rev. Lett. 86, 3779 (2001).
  68. G. Kube, S. Bajt, A. Potylitsyn, L. Sukhikh, A. Vukolov, I. Artyukov, and W. Lauth, Transverse beam profile imaging of few-micrometer beam sizes based on a scintillator screen, in Proceedings of IBIC’15 (JACoW Publishing, Geneva, 2015), p. 330.
  69. G. Kube, S. Liu, A. Novokshonov, and M. Scholz, Identification and mitigation of smoke-ring effects in scintillator-based electron beam images at the European XFEL, in Proceedings of FEL’19 (JACoW Publishing, Geneva, 2019), p. 301.
  70. J. B. Birks, The Theory and Practice of Scintillation Counting (Elsevier, Amsterdam, 1964), 1st ed.
  71. T. Kurz, J. C. Cabadağ, J. M. Krämer, H. Ding, S. Kuschel, A. Köhler, O. Zarini, D. Hollatz, D. Schinkel, R. D’Arcy, J.-P. Schwinkendorf, J. Osterhoff, A. Irman, U. Schramm, and S. Karsch, Calibration and cross-laboratory implementation of scintillating screens for electron bunch charge determination, Rev. Sci. Instrum. 89, 093303 (2018).
  72. P. González Caminal et al., Beam-based commissioning of a novel X-band transverse deflection structure with variable polarization, Phys. Rev. Accel. Beams 27, 032801 (2024).

Outline

Information

Phys. Rev. Research 8, 033242– Published 27 August, 2026
  • Received 11 September 2025
  • Accepted 14 July 2026
Crossmark - Check for updates button
Creative Commons Logo

Published by the American Physical Society under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International license. Further distribution of this work must maintain attribution to the author(s) and the published article's title, journal citation, and DOI. Funded by Bibsam.

Published by the American Physical Society

Sign In to Your Journals Account

Filter

Filter

Article Lookup

Enter a citation