High ion-acceleration by employing a low-/spl gamma/ intense electron-beam

Analyses of results of ion acceleration employing intense electron-beam revealed that the nucleon energy attained per unit energy investment scaled inversely with /spl gamma/. Total energy scaling is supported by a potential well sustained over a long distance by suitable beam-duration. Following this, a low /spl gamma//spl sim/1.49, 6 kA, 40 ns FWHM electron beam from KALI-200 was focused into a short dielectric collimator and propagated in vacuum for durations of 15-150 ns, and ions were accelerated to nucleon energy over 20-30 MeV/kJ with ion current /spl sim/kA/kJ. The enhancement in ion energy was also attributed to the low-/spl gamma/ assisted peak Poisson field E/sub z//spl sim/C/sub 0/I/sub e///spl beta//sub e/c/spl delta/, small well-length /spl delta//spl prop//spl beta//sub e/, and ion-charge multiplication. The minimum /spl gamma/ is decided by desired high electric field for intense electron-beam generation by field emission and maximum multiple ionizations.