Overview of plasma lens experiments and recent results at SPARC_LAB

Beam injection and extraction from a plasma module is still one of the crucial aspects to solve in order to producehigh quality electron beams with a plasma accelerator. Proper matching conditions require to focus the incominghigh brightness beam down to few microns size and to capture a high divergent beam at the exit without loss ofbeam quality. Plasma-based lenses have proven to provide focusing gradients of the order of kT/m with radiallysymmetric focusing thus promising compact and affordable alternative to permanent magnets in the design oftransport lines. In this paper an overview of recent experiments and future perspectives of plasma lenses isreported.