Influence of additional electron injection on the parameters of wire discharge in accelerator based on non-self-sustaining HVGD

The results of experiments on the use of additional electron injection to generate a wire discharge with a hollow cathode with an area of ≈ 20 000 cm2, which is auxiliary in an electron accelerator based on a non-self-sustaining high-voltage glow discharge, are presented. A directly heated thermal cathode made of tungsten wire with a diameter of 0.35 mm and a length of 2 cm was used as an additional source of electrons. Additional injection of electrons made it possible to reduce the discharge voltage in helium by up to 300 V at the discharge current amplitude of up to 400 mA, which can be used to achieve the optimal value of the cathode potential drop of the wire discharge, which determines the ion-electron optical system of the accelerator. The dependences of the wire discharge combustion voltage on the working gas pressure were obtained for various thermionic cathode connection schemes.

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