Experimental Study of Electron Gun With Hollow-Anode Vacuum-Arc-Plasma Cathode

This paper presents experimental results of a novel electron gun with a vacuum-arc-plasma cathode used in microwave tube devices. The plasma cathode is based on a vacuum-arc discharge with a novel hollow anode and a Pierce-type electrostatic focusing system. The experimental result shows that this type of electron gun can be used to generate an electron beam of several amperes with a long pulsewidth. Based on the test results, a longer pulsewidth can theoretically be obtained by adjusting the parameters of the vacuum-arc discharge and ignoring heat dissipation and electrode erosion.