Relativistic electron beam generation in a plasma-filled diode with foilless injection into a dense plasma

Abstract

In the experiments an relativistic electron beam (REB)-plasma interaction, the foilless injection of REB from a magnetized diode is of special interest due to the low spread angle of the beam and high repetition rate of the shots. In the experiments presented, the problem of diode shortening in the presence of a dense plasma from the interaction chamber has been solved using a special drift pipe as an anode of the foilless diode. The electron beam (U/sub d//spl sim/0.7 MeV, t/sub b//spl sim/100-200 ns) produced by an axially symmetric magnetically insulated diode has been injected into a magnetized hydrogen plasma column with density ranging from 1/spl middot/10/sup 15/-3/spl middot/10/sup 16/ cm/sup -3/. It has been found that the anode pipe substantially reduces the plasma flow into the diode gap, but does not stop it completely, thus the REB generation in a plasma-filled diode has taken place. In some regimes of the beam generation it becomes possible to increase significantly the injected current and total energy deposition of the beam in comparison with the case of a vacuum magnetized diode of the same geometry. The experiments have shown effective dense plasma heating under the foilless injection.