Pseudospark Sourced E- Beam Interaction with a Backward Travelling Wave

Summary form only given. Because of its unusual and interesting discharge properties, the pseudospark (ps) has attracted significant attention from diverse fields such as material processing, pulsed-power switching, electron beam generation, free electron masers, ion beam generation, extreme-ultraviolet radiation sources, microthrusters, and pseudospark-triggered Wakefield accelerators, etc. A pseudospark discharge has indeed shown to be a promising source of high brightness, high intensity electron beam pulses. During a pseudospark discharge, a low temperature plasma is formed which acts as a copious source of electrons which can be regarded as a low work function surface that facilitates electron and ion extraction. This paper will present some measurements and results of ps discharge experiments, ps-sourced electron beam experiments. Pulsed electron beams with current intensity over 10⁸ Am^-2, high brightness up to 10¹² Am^-2 rad^-2 and emittance of tens of mm mrad were produced from a multi-gap pseudospark discharge. The transportation of the pseudospark electron beams in order to produce high peak current, high quality, high-brightness electron beam pulses for interaction with a backward traveling wave resulting in the generation of high power microwave radiation is presented.