With gigaelectron-volts per centimetre energy gains and femtosecond electron beams, laser wakefield acceleration (LWFA) is a promising candidate for applications, such as ultrafast electron diffraction, multistaged colliders and radiation sources (betatron, compton, undulator, free electron laser). However, for some of these applications, the beam performance, for example, energy spread, divergence and shot-to-shot fluctuations, need a drastic improvement. Here, we show that, using a dedicated transport line, we can mitigate these initial weaknesses. We demonstrate that we can manipulate the beam longitudinal and transverse phase-space of the presently available LWFA beams. Indeed, we separately correct orbit mis-steerings and minimise dispersion thanks to specially designed variable strength quadrupoles, and select the useful energy range passing through a slit in a magnetic chicane. Therefore, this matched electron beam leads to the successful observation of undulator synchrotron radiation after an 8 m transport path. These results pave the way to applications demanding in terms of beam quality.

High gradient quadrupoles are necessary for different applications such as laser plasma acceleration, colliders, and diffraction limited light sources. Permanent magnet quadrupoles provide a higher field strength and compactness than conventional electro-magnets. An original design of permanent magnet based quadrupole (so-called "QUAPEVA"), composed of a Halbach ring placed in the center with a bore radius of 6 mm and surrounded by four permanent magnet cylinders capable of providing a gradient of 210 T/m, is presented. The design of the QUAPEVAs, including magnetic simulation modeling, and mechanical issues are reported. Magnetic measurements of seven systems of different lengths are presented and confirmed the theoretical expectations. The variation of the magnetic center while changing the gradient strength is +/- 10 micrometer. A triplet of three QUAPEVA magnets are used to focus a beam with large energy spread and high divergence that is generated by Laser Plasma Acceleration source for a free electron laser demonstration.Comment: 4 pages, 9 figure

Undulator based synchrotron light sources and Free Electron Lasers (FELs) are valuable modern probes of matter with high temporal and spatial resolution. Laser Plasma Accelerators (LPAs), delivering GeV electron beams in few centimeters, are good candidates for future compact light sources. However the barriers set by the large energy spread, divergence and shot-to-shot fluctuations require a specific transport line, to shape the electron beam phase space for achieving ultrashort undulator synchrotron radiation suitable for users and even for achieving FEL amplification. Proof-of-principle LPA based undulator emission, with strong electron focusing or transport, does not yet exhibit the full specific radiation properties. We report on the generation of undulator radiation with an LPA beam based manipulation in a dedicated transport line with versatile properties. After evidencing the specific spatio-spectral signature, we tune the resonant wavelength within 200–300 nm by modification of the electron beam energy and the undulator field. We achieve a wavelength stability of 2.6%. We demonstrate that we can control the spatio-spectral purity and spectral brightness by reducing the energy range inside the chicane. We have also observed the second harmonic emission of the undulator.