Investigation on the pseudospark electron beam and its application for the generation of soft X-rays

An investigation on the pseudospark electron beam is presented in this paper. Time-integrated and time-resolved pictures of the X-rays generated by the electron beam are taken with a special X-ray pinhole camera. They show the spatial and temporal development of the pseudospark electron beam. Time-integrated pictures indicate spatial instabilities of the electron beam caused by a bent or broadened electron beam due to space charge effects. The results of the time-resolved measurements show X-ray emission only during two short periods at the very beginning of the discharge before the beam current reaches its maximum. Only during these periods does the electron beam contain high-energy electrons. In between these two periods the energy of the beam electrons decreases because of a space-charge-limited beam transport