Cherenkov interaction and post-acceleration experiments of high brightness electron beams from a pseudospark discharge

A pseudospark-sourced electron beam has two phases, an initial hollow cathode phase (HCP) beam followed by a conductive phase (CP) beam. The beam brightness was measured by a field-free collimator to be 109 and 1011 A m−2 rad−2 for HCP beam and CP beam, respectively. The initial HCP beam from an eight-gap pseudospark discharge was applied in a Cherenkov interaction between the electron beam and the TM01 mode of a 60-cm long alumina-lined waveguide. While the CP beam from a three-gap pseudospark discharge chamber was propagated and post-accelerated from about 200 V to more than 40 kV.