Propagation and post-acceleration of a pseudospark-sourced electron beam

Propagation and post-acceleration of a pseudospark-sourced electron beam from a three-gap pseudospark discharge chamber were studied in recent experiments. The pseudospark produced an electron beam of two phases, an initial 22 kV, 50 A hollow cathode phase beam of brightness 10(9-10) Am-2 rad(-2) followed by a 200 V, 200 A conductive phase (CP) beam of brightness 10(11-12) Am-2 rad(-2). The aim of these experiments was to post accelerate the lower-voltage, higher-current CP beam using an acceleration unit driven by a 40 kV, 125 ns voltage pulse produced by a cable Blumlein. The experiments were realized by attaching an acceleration unit to the downstream side of the anode of the discharge chamber. Both the pseudospark discharge and the cable Blumlein were triggered to ensure time correlation between initiation of the pseudospark discharge and post-acceleration of the beam.