Numerical simulation of beam current control mechanism in the thermionic electron gun

The thermionic electron gun is one of essential parts of electron accelerators and vacuum tubes. For electron beam generation it is basically configured by cathode, anode and it can have control electrode. In common electron guns, beam current is typically controlled by the bias voltage on the Wehnelt electrode. To deeply study the control mechanism of electron beam current, a three-dimensional model of a 60 kV/6 kW thermionic electron gun is established and the simulation of electric field distribution with CST software is shown in this paper. The particle tracking model is used to track the movement of emitted electrons and the quantitative relationship between beam current and bias voltage is established. Results show that electron beam current is inversely proportional to the bias voltage within a certain range. As the bias voltage increases, the electric field distribution in electron gun changes and the equipotential line of accelerating voltage moves towards the emitting surface of cathode, therefore the Effective Emitting Area (EEA) of cathode decreases and, accordingly, the beam current also decreases. Besides, when the bias voltage is fixed, fluctuations of the accelerating voltage cause fluctuations of the beam current, which is especially severe when the beam current is small.