Dynamics of a relativistic electron beam in a high-current diode with a knife-edge cathode

For a number of practical applications, e.g., producing discharges in large volumes in order to pump gas lasers and for short x-ray pulses, it is necessary to generate electron beams in megamp range with electron energies from hundreds of kilovolts to several megavolts. It has been possible to obtain high currents (I ± 1 MA) by using diodes with knife-edge cathodes. Knife-edge diodes have an important advantage over the parapotential type because the ion current in them comprises a relatively small fraction of the total current. This is because the electron path in the accelerating gap of knife-edge diodes is quite short in comparison with that in high-current parapotential diodes. From the point of view of applying ribbon-shaped or narrow electron beams, the important problems are in measuring the current-voltage characteristics of the diodes and determining the dynamics of the energy spectrum and the angular spread of the electrons. The generation of an electron beam with a current ∼130 kA and pulse length ∼60 ns is studied. The current-voltage characteristics of knife-edge diodes with various geometries, the dynamics of the angular spread, and the beam structure are studied. As a result of the study of the REB dynamics it is found that the operation of the diode with these experiments can be approximated by a proposed formula which includes the finite thickness of the knife-edge cathode and the motion of the plasma and ions in the discharge gap. Breaking up of the beam into individual current-carrying channels is observed with the characteristic scale ∼1-2 mm. It is noted that for the diode geometry with a knife-edge cathode, when the magnetic field changes sign and passes through zero, an instability can exist which is analogous to the dissipative tearing instability