Emission from ferroelectric cathodes

The authors have recently initiated an investigation of electron emission from ferroelectric cathodes. The experimental apparatus consisted of an electron diode and a 250 kV, 12 ohm, 70 ns pulsed high voltage power source. A planar triode modulator driven by a synthesized waveform generator initiates the polarization inversion and allows inversion pulse tailoring. The pulsed high voltage power source is capable of delivering two high voltage pulses within 50 μs of each other and is capable of operating at a sustained repetition rate of 5 Hz. The initial measurements indicate that emission current densities above the Child-Langmuir Space Charge Limit, JCL, are possible. They explain this effect to be based on a non-zero initial energy of the emitted electrons. They also determined that this effect is strongly coupled to relative timing between the inversion pulse and application of the main anode-cathode pulse. They also have initiated brightness measurements of the emitted beam and estimate a preliminary lower bound to be on the order of 109 A/m2-rad2 for currents close to JCL and factor of two less at currents over 4JCL. As in previous measurements at this Laboratory, they performed the measurement using a pepper pot technique. Beamlet profiles are recorded with a fast phosphor and gated cameras. They describe their apparatus and preliminary measurements