Generation and propagation of high-brightness electron beams from a magnetically crowbarred injector

Abstract

Tests of a 300-keV electrostatic electron beam injector with a magnetic crowbar switch are described. The saturable ferrite core switch allows generation of a constant voltage, 80-ns pulse directly from a Marx generator. Inductive isolation in the switch permits direct access to the high-voltage electrode for thermionic or active plasma cathode experiments. The pulse modulator can drive a 1.5-kA load. A high brightness 290-A beam from a felt plasma-emission cathode was extracted and propagated in vacuum. Because of the reliability of the magnetic crowbar switch, more than 500 shots were accumulated on the cathode at over 1 kA/cm2 with no degradation of the output. The output beam had a normalized brightness of 2.6×108 A/(m rad)2. A solenoidal lens was used to match the space-charge-dominated beam into a 1-m-long periodic focusing system with 25 reversing solenoidal coils. A beam current of 150 A was successfully transported through the 1.7-cm radius tube.