  High peak current electron beams are essential for x-ray free-electron lasers
(FELs), and generally realized through multi-stage compression with symmetric
C-shape four-bend chicanes. However, the coherent synchrotron radiations (CSR),
emitted for wavelengths longer than or comparable to the length of the electron
bunch during the compression, may degrade the beam quality and finally affect
the FEL performance. In this Letter, we show that zero net CSR kick cannot be
achieved in a symmetric C-chicane by using an explicit point-kick analysis of
the CSR effects, which is responsible for significant emittance growth when
pursuing a peak current of $\gtrsim$ 10 kiloamperes. A four-bend chicane with
non-symmetric S-shape geometry that can self-cancel the CSR kicks is proposed
to effectively suppress the emittance growth. Compared to the symmetric
C-chicane, beams with three times higher peak current and similar emittance
growth can be achieved with the S-chicane for typical FEL operation parameters.
We believe that this study provides a viable way of producing high quality and
short intense electron beams, benefiting future development of FELs and other
types of accelerator-based scientific facilities.
