High power high brightness electron beam generation in a pulse-line driven pseudospark discharge

High brightness (~3×10¹⁰ A/m²rad² ), high power density (~10¹⁰ W/cm²) electron beams have been generated by the mating of a hollow-cathode discharge device operating in the pseudospark regime to the output of a high power pulse line accelerator. Very small diameter (~1 mm) electron beams with currents in the range 500-1000 A and energies in the range 150-300 keV have been generated with measured effective emittances of about 85 mm-mrad. Such emittances are comparable to those achieved in conventional electron beam sources at current densities several orders of magnitude lower than those observed in these experiments