Electric characteristics of high-current self-magnetic pinch diode of pulsed electron accelerator “Gamma-1”

RFNC-VNIIEF is developing a four module electrophysical facility “Gamma-4” (2 MV, 3 MA, 60 ns), meant for generation of powerful bremsstrahlung radiation pulses (BR). One of the basic modes of the facility operation is a mode of each module operation with its autonomous vacuum diode. The present work is concerned with electric characteristics of a self-magnetic-pinch (SMP) diode of the typical module of “Gamma-4” facility - pulsed electron accelerator “Gamma-1”. In all there were performed 20 shots of “Gamma-1” accelerator at 0.9 MV charging voltage of its forming system lines. In the experiments the SMP diode with a hollow cathode with 168 mm output diameter was used. The diode impedance was adjusted by changing the accelerating gap between a cathode and a target within the range of 4 up to 14 mm. It is shown, that when changing the diode impedance within the limits from 1.3 up to 4.0 Ohm on the typical module of “Gamma-4” facility there can be implemented operation modes of BR pulse formation with boundary quantum energy 0.9 up to 2.0 MeV.