Experimental investigation of a 1 kA/cm² sheet beam plasma cathode electron gun.

In this paper, a cold cathode based sheet-beam plasma cathode electron gun is reported with achieved sheet-beam current density ~1 kA/cm² from pseudospark based argon plasma for pulse length of ~200 ns in a single shot experiment. For the qualitative assessment of the sheet-beam, an arrangement of three isolated metallic-sheets is proposed. The actual shape and size of the sheet-electron-beam are obtained through a non-conventional method by proposing a dielectric charging technique and scanning electron microscope based imaging. As distinct from the earlier developed sheet beam sources, the generated sheet-beam has been propagated more than 190 mm distance in a drift space region maintaining sheet structure without assistance of any external magnetic field. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]