Electron beam current in high power cylindrical diode

Abstract

Intense electron beam generation studies were carried out in high power cylindrical diode to investigate the effect of the accelerating gap and diode voltage on the electron beam current. The diode voltage has been varied from 130 to 356 kV, whereas the current density has been varied from 87 to 391 A/cm2 with 100 ns pulse duration. The experimentally obtained electron beam current in the cylindrical diode has been compared with the Langmuir–Blodgett law. It was found that the diode current can be explained by a model of anode and cathode plasma expanding toward each other. However, the diode voltage and current do not follow the bipolar space-charge limited flow model. It was also found that initially only a part of the cathode take part in the emission process. The plasma expands at 4.2 cm/μs for 1.7 cm anode-cathode gap and the plasma velocity decreases for smaller gaps. The electrode plasma expansion velocity of the cylindrical diode is much smaller as compared with the planar diode for the same accelerating gap and diode voltage. Therefore, much higher voltage can be obtained for the cylindrical diodes as compared with the planar diodes for the same accelerating gap.