Expansion of the working range of forevacuum plasma electron sources toward higher pressures

Abstract

It is shown that the pressure in forevacuum plasma electron sources is limited from above by a current component that arises in the accelerating gap from a high-voltage glow discharge and dominates in the electron beam. The working pressure range of such electron sources can be expanded toward higher pressures by limiting the current of the high-voltage glow discharge in the accelerating gap.