Intense gigawatt relativistic electron beam generation in the presence of prepulse.

Large pulse power systems in the presence of prepulse can deliver gigawatt power pulses into a matched load. While employing these pulse power systems for the generation of intense relativistic electron beams (IREBs), the prepulse initiated plasma closes the anode cathode gap, if the gap distance is set by the Child-Langmuir formula. In order to reduce the prepulse effect, the anode cathode gap has been increased for the generation of IREB with output parameters of 400 kV, 20 kA, and 100 ns pulse duration. In this paper the generation of IREB in the presence of prepulse without using any prepulse switch has been discussed. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]