High power, high brightness electron beam generation in a pulse-line driven pseudospark discharge

High brightness (∼1010 A/m2 rad2), high power density (∼1010 W/cm2) electron beams have been generated by the mating of a hollow‐cathode discharge device operating in the pseudospark regime to the output of a high power pulse line accelerator. Very small diameter (∼1 mm) electron beams with currents in the range 500–1000 A and energies in the range 150–300 keV have been generated with effective emittances estimated to be at or below 170 mm mrad. Such emittances are comparable to those achieved in conventional electron beam sources at current densities several orders of magnitude lower than those observed in these experiments.