Electron emission of cathode holder of vacuum diode of an intense electron-beam accelerator and its effect on the output voltage

Abstract

The vacuum diode which is used to generate relativistic electron beams is one of the most important parts of a pulsed-power modulator. In this paper, the electron emission of cathode holder of a vacuum diode and its effect on the output voltage is investigated by experiments on an intense electron-beam accelerator with 180 ns full width at half maximum and 200–500 kV output voltage. First, the field emission is analyzed and the electric field of the vacuum chamber is calculated. Then, the flatness of the output voltage is discussed before and after adding an insulation plate when a water load is used. It is found that the electron emission at the edges of the cathode holder is the main reason to cause the change of the flatness. Last, a piece of polyester film is used as a target to further show the electron emission of the cathode holder. This analysis shows that decreasing the electron emission of the cathode holder in such a pulse power modulator could be a good way to improve the quality of the output voltage.