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  • Letter
  • Open Access

Plasma dechirper and lens for electron beams from laser wakefield acceleration in a tailored density profile

T. L. Steyn1,*, A. Panchal2, O. Vasilovici1, F. M. Herrmann3,4, S. Schöbel3, P. Ufer3,4, O. Khomyshyn1, Y.-Y. Chang3, I. Moulanier1 et al.

M. Masckala1, M. Samir3,4, C. Ballage1, M. LaBerge3, F. Massimo1, P. Désesquelles1, S. Dobosz Dufrénoy2, U. Schramm3,4, A. Irman3, and B. Cros1,†

  • *Contact author: theunis-lodewyk.steyn@universite-paris-saclay.fr
  • †Contact author: brigitte.cros@cnrs.fr
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Phys. Rev. Accel. Beams 29, L080501 – Published 31 August, 2026

DOI: https://doi.org/10.1103/fdkn-8hpg

Abstract

Achieving high-quality electron beams from laser wakefield accelerators critically relies on density tailoring to control electron dynamics during injection, acceleration, and extraction. We report on the experimental observation of electron beam acceleration and shaping, in transverse momentum and longitudinal phase space, controlled by plasma density tailoring in a gas cell. Electron beams with a FWHM charge of 40 pC at an energy of 190 MeV, 3.4% energy spread and an rms divergence of 0.46 mrad, corresponding to a transverse momentum spread of 0.2  mec, have been measured. These beams have a peak spectral brightness of up to 8  pC/MeV/mrad. Simulations using experimental parameters as input show that acceleration in the plasma plateau leads to chirped electron beams which then undergo transverse momentum spread reduction in a plasma down-ramp followed by dechirping in a 10 mm long plasma tail, leading to the measured peaked spectra. The comparison of experimental results with and without long plasma tail confirms this analysis.

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Phys. Rev. Accel. Beams 29, L080501– Published 31 August, 2026
  • Received 22 June 2025
  • Accepted 29 June 2026
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