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 gener ated by the electron beam are taken with a special X-ray pinhole camer a. They show the spatial and temporal development of the pseudospark e lectron beam. Time-integrated pictures indicate spatial instabilities of the electron beam caused by a bent or broadened electron beam due t o space charge effects. The results of the time-resolved measurements show X-ray emission only during two short periods at the very beginnin g of the discharge before the beam current reaches its maximum. Only d uring these periods does the electron beam contain high-energy electro ns, In between these two periods the energy of the beam electrons decr eases because of a space-charge-limited beam transport.