A low-energy MHz repetition rate short-pulse electron gun

Abstract

An electron gun that can produce MHz repetition rates and nanosecond pulses is described. The gun uses a Pierce grid in combination with an anode to extract electrons from a tungsten filament cathode. The electrons emerging from the anode are accelerated and focused using two triple-aperture lenses to form a beam. By applying a high slew rate grid pulse that transitions through the extraction voltage region of the grid/anode combination, pulses of electrons are produced from the gun that have temporal widths less than 5 ns. The pulsed beams are produced at both the rising and falling edges of the driving pulse. The characteristics of the emerging electron beams have been determined using an (e, 2e) coincidence spectrometer, and examples where they are used for time of flight decay measurements are presented.