Temporal Waveshaping of a Triode Cold Cathode Electron Beam Gun
Abstract
It was first shown by Loda that the effect of plasma closure on the impedance of cold cathode diode electron beam guns could be greatly reduced by adding a self-biased grid to the gun. Large triode cold cathode electron beam guns are being used by Los Alamos National Laboratory in the ANTARES system. A characteristic of the triode cold cathode e-gun is that a large initial current overshoot occurs as the self-biased grid charges to the operating voltage and the acceleration voltage has a poor rise time when a pulse forming network is used for excitation. Since foil heating is inversely related to e-gun voltage, the voltage rise and fall times should be minimized to reduce the heating. Leland and Kirchner recognized the need for improving the initial triode e-gun transient and suggested using auxiliary circuitry for rapid readjustment of the grid potential after cathode ignition, using a "spark" cathode or reducing the grid-anode capacitance.4 In this paper the characteristics of a 15 cm by 200 cm beam area "spark" cathode, triode electron beam gun are presented and the modeling and experiments performed to improve its voltage rise time are described.
Document Details
- Document Type
- Technical Report
- Publication Date
- Jun 01, 1983
- Accession Number
- ADA638385
Entities
People
- Gary Loda
- George J. Dezenberg
- Sol Schneider
- William F. Otto
Organizations
- United States Army Aviation and Missile Command