Hollow cathode electron gun for beam generation in forevacuum gas pressure

Characteristics, performance and design features of a filament-less plasma cathode electron gun for beam generation in forevacuum gas pressure range are presented, The plasma cathode is based on hollow cathode DC discharge. Using method of "grid stabilization", it was possible to generate e-beam under the background gas pressure as high as about 10/sup -1/ torr. This pressure can be easy obtained by mechanical pump. Presence of a magnetic field is one of requests for several applications, such as plasma chemistry and surface treatment processes. So operation of the gun under the B-field up to 0.1 T was investigated. It was observed an influence of the B-field both on discharge and emission parameters of the gun. The results obtained can be explained based on idea of electron confinement by magnetic field and it's motion across the B-field, With the accelerating voltage up to 8 kV the gun is able to generate of about 0.7 A DC electron beam.