Electron beam potential measurements on an inductive-store, opening-switch accelerator

Direct measurement of the accelerating potential in a relativistic electron beam accelerator is difficult, particularly when the diode is downstream from a plasma opening switch. An indirect potential measurement can be obtained from the high energy tail of the bremsstrahlung spectrum generated as the electron beam strikes the anode. Our time-resolved spectrometer contains 7 silicon pin diode detectors filtered with 2 to 15 mm of lead to span an electron energy range of 0.5 to 2 MeV. A Monte-Carlo transport code was used to provide calibration curves, and the resulting potential measurements have been confirmed in experiments on the PITHON accelerator. The spectrometer has recently been deployed on PM1, an inductive-store, opening-switch testbed. The diode voltage measurements from the spectrometer are in good agreement with the diode voltage measured upstream and corrected using transmission line relations. The x-ray signal and spectral voltage rise 10 ns later than the corrected electrical voltage, however, indicating plasma motion between the opening switch and the diode.