Prepulse Suppression on a High-Power Electron Beam Accelerator Using a Dielectric Cathode Holder

Intense gigawatt relativistic electron beam generation studies were carried out with a Perspex cathode holder. Purpose of the dielectric cathode holder was to minimize the prepulse voltage across the diode. The typical electron beam parameter was 180 kV, 26 kA, 100 ns, with a few hundreds of ampere per square centimeter current density. It was found that corrugated Perspex of length ges35 mm can eliminate the prepulse voltage but affects the rise time of the diode voltage. The diode voltage and current waveforms were analyzed with the bipolar space-charge limited flow model. The anode and cathode plasma expansion velocities were calculated using the perveance data. The plasma expands at 5.1 cm/mus for 18-mm anode-cathode gap and the plasma velocity increases for larger gap. Inserting a dielectric at the cathode holder could be a very effective method to reduce prepulse voltage at the electron beam diode, but it increases the rise time of the diode voltage and reduces the effective electron beam pulsewidth. The prepulse voltage reduces significantly (les10%) when an inductance is added to the charging circuit of the Blumlein line.