A device for producing uniform plasmas for advanced accelerator experiments

13 January 2003

conference paper
Published by Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers (IEEE)

Abstract

Summary Form only given, as follows. The authors report the development of a device that produces uniform plasmas of density 10/sup 14/-10/sup 15/ cm/sup -3/ over volumes >1 cm/sup 3/ and discuss applications for the realization of plasma lens and plasma accelerator experiments. The device is based on a high-current hollow-cathode pulsed discharge that has demonstrated a uniform, repeatable plasma and can be operated at high repetition rates with low energy storage and dissipation. The high current and electron densities are possible due to a superemissive self-heated cathode. The cathode is molybdenum that has a thin surface layer heated to its melting point ( approximately 2900 K) by ion bombardment during the transient phase of the pulsed discharge. This hot surface layer produces a significant field-enhanced thermionic emission from an initially cold cathode.

Keywords

This publication has 0 references indexed in Scilit: