Theory of Explosive Electron Emission

This review represents some aspects of the theory of explosive electron emission. This is a single kind of emission that enables one to obtain electron beams with currents up to 106 and a density of the emission current from the cathode of 1012 A/m2 and more. A classification is suggested that permits to distinguish some specific aspects of such a complicated phenomenon as explosive emission. Quantitative characteristics ics of the initiation of explosive emission, of the cathode erosion and of the near-cathode plasma are given. The notions about the explosive emission ion as a cyclical process with a characteristic time of about 10-8 s are developed.