High power, high brightness electron beam generation in a pulse-line driven pseudospark discharge

Abstract

High brightness (m 3 x 10" A/m2rad2), high power density (- 1O1O W/cm2) electron beams have been generated by the mating of a hollow-cathode discharge device operating in the pseudospark regime to the output of a high power pulse line accelerator. Very small diameter (w 1 mm) electron beams with currents in the range 500-1000 A and energies in the range 150-300 keV have been generated with measured effective emittances of about 85 mm-mrad. Such emittances are comparable to those achieved in conventional electron beam sources at current densities several orders of magnitude lower than those observed in these experiments.