Direct synthesis of crossed-field electron guns—A novel gun for producing Brillouin flow

A direct approach to the synthesis of crossed-field electron guns is presented. An iterative approximation to the desired beam form is achieved by application of the paraxial ray equation alternatively solving for potential and curvature along the beam while maintaining certain end-point conditions and the desired convergence pattern. When sufficient accuracy is obtained, polynomial approximations are used to express shapes of the trajectories and the electric fields along the beam edges in analytic form. The electrodes to produce the necessary electric fields along the beam edges are calculated by Kirstein's method. A conformal transformation is used to transform the beam edge into the real axis of a complex plane and analytic continuation of a suitable complex potential function is employed to find equipotential lines. These are transformed back into the plane of real coordinates and are surfaces along which electrodes can be placed. A novel short gun which produces a Brillouin beam has been designed using the iterative approach. The availability of beam curvature as a variable has made it possible to find an electrode system which controls the transition from the cathode-region flow characteristics used in Kino's short gun to a drift Brillouin beam. Detailed experimental evaluation of the gun reveals that the beam characteristics are in good agreement with those predicted theoretically.