Abstract
Large-area electron guns are critical components in many high-energy gas laser systems. The secondary emission electron (SEE) gun, in which a beam is generated by ion bombardment of the cathode, offers an attractive option for pulsed laser applications. With this type of cold cathode gun, a dc voltage is applied to the cathode and the electron beam is controlled by modulating the source of ions in which resides a ground potential. This design greatly simplifies the electron gun power system. A SEE gun system has recently been developed which provides a 150-kV, 5- × 150-cm2 beam at current densities of up to 12 mA/cm2 (uniformity about ±10%) in 30-µs pulses at 30 pps. It is expected that the SEE gun can be easily scaled to beam voltages of >300 kV, beam areas >10,000 cm2, peak current densities exceeding 1 A /cm2, time-averaged current densities >0.5 mA/cm2, pulse lengths of 0.1 µs to dc, and pulse repetition rates >1 kHz with good uniformity (±5%), high reliability, and long life (>1000 h). Furthermore, the inherent simplicity of the SEE gun results in low cost and a compact, lightweight system.
© 1989 Optical Society of America
PDF ArticleMore Like This
J. BONNET, D. PIGACHE, P. LABORDE, and M. STEHLE
WF12 Conference on Lasers and Electro-Optics (CLEO:S&I) 1989
N. N. Ustinovskii, P. J. M. Peters, S. W. A. Gielkens, and W. J. Witteman
CTuK91 The European Conference on Lasers and Electro-Optics (CLEO/Europe) 1994
R. Bazrafshan, M. Fakhari, K. Flöttmann, T. Rohwer, N. H. Matlis, and F. X. Kärtner
Th4A.37 International Conference on Ultrafast Phenomena (UP) 2022