Compact Accelerator of Runaway Electron Bunches Based on the RADAN-A4 High-Voltage Pulse Generator

An accelerator of runaway electron (RAE) bunches was built and tested. It is based on the RADAN-A4 compact high-voltage pulse generator. The generator produces high-voltage pulses of amplitude up to −125 kV and duration of 2 ns with a rise time of 250 ps across a 50-<inline-formula xmlns:mml="http://www.w3.org/1998/Math/MathML" xmlns:xlink="http://www.w3.org/1999/xlink"> <tex-math notation="LaTeX">$\Omega $</tex-math> </inline-formula> load. With a magnetically insulated coaxial diode filled with atmospheric pressure air used as a load, RAE bunches <inline-formula xmlns:mml="http://www.w3.org/1998/Math/MathML" xmlns:xlink="http://www.w3.org/1999/xlink"> <tex-math notation="LaTeX">$\approx10$</tex-math> </inline-formula> mm in diameter with a duration [full-width at half-maximum (FWHM)] of 110 ps, current of up to 8.6 A, and charge of up to 1.1 nC were produced. The obtained current and charge densities (10.6 A/cm<sup xmlns:mml="http://www.w3.org/1998/Math/MathML" xmlns:xlink="http://www.w3.org/1999/xlink">2</sup> and 1.4 nC/cm<sup xmlns:mml="http://www.w3.org/1998/Math/MathML" xmlns:xlink="http://www.w3.org/1999/xlink">2</sup>, respectively) are sufficient for use in pulsed cathodoluminescence (PCL) spectral analysis.