Generation of high power, high frequency radiation using high brightness pseudospark-sourced relativistic electron beams

Lead Research Organisation: Queen Mary University of London
Department Name: Sch of Electronic Eng & Computer Science

Abstract

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Publications

10 25 50
 
Description To achieve higher BWO output power levels in the hundreds of GHz to THz range, a higher current density electron beam, around the 100s of A/cm2, is required. But as the frequency is increased towards the THz range, the diameter of the BWO interaction region has to be reduced in order to prevent the beam-wave interaction region becoming overmoded which results in a loss of the temporal or spatial coherence of the output radiation. To satisfy the beam requirements for THz devices, the pseudospark-sourced electron beam was used due to it possessing the highest combined beam density and brightness as compared to any other electron beam source. Because of its high current emission and special discharge characteristics it has many useful potential applications such as an electron beam driven X-ray source, THz remote imaging and plasma diagnostics.
Exploitation Route The pseudospark source has attracted significant world wide interest due to its ability to generate THz radiation without the need to use an axial guide magnetic field.
Sectors Education,Electronics,Healthcare,Manufacturing, including Industrial Biotechology

 
Description A pseudospark discharge to generate a sub-mm diameter electron beam that does not require an external magnetic field to drive a high frequency millimetre wave source has been achieved. It was demonstrated that the initial high-energy electrons generated by the pseudospark discharge ionises the background gas to form a plasma channel, the electron beam subsequently generated by the PS discharge then propagates along the plasma channel. The research output from this project has been excellent, as witnessed by the substantial number of publications in journals and also the dissemination of the research has been strongly promoted by publication in research conferences. The pseudospark research was selected for five invited talks {(ICTP Trieste, Italy, 2009), (MIT, Boston USA, 2010) and (VEDA-2012 CSIR-CEERI, Pilani, Rajasthan, India, 2012)}, International Conference on Plasma Science, Technology and Applications (ICPSTA-2016), Amity School of Applied Sciences, Amity University Uttar Pradesh (AUUP), Lucknow campus, India.
First Year Of Impact 2009
Sector Education,Electronics,Healthcare,Manufacturing, including Industrial Biotechology
Impact Types Economic

 
Description Adrian Cross 
Organisation University of Strathclyde
Country United Kingdom 
Sector Academic/University 
PI Contribution My group carried out some modelling of the pseudospark discharge using the Particle In Cell code MAGIC
Collaborator Contribution Prof Cross' group conducted an extensive experimental work
Impact 6 joint papers
Start Year 2010