  Laser-plasma technology promises a drastic reduction of the size of high
energy electron accelerators. It could make free electron lasers available to a
broad scientific community, and push further the limits of electron
accelerators for high energy physics. Furthermore the unique femtosecond nature
of the source makes it a promising tool for the study of ultra-fast phenomena.
However, applications are hindered by the lack of suitable lens to transport
this kind of high-current electron beams, mainly due to their divergence. Here
we show that this issue can be solved by using a laser-plasma lens, in which
the field gradients are five order of magnitude larger than in conventional
optics. We demonstrate a reduction of the divergence by nearly a factor of
three, which should allow for an efficient coupling of the beam with a
conventional beam transport line.
