Emittance and brightness measurement of a high voltage pseudospark electron beam

This is a report of the emittance and brightness measurement of an electron beam produced in a pseudospark discharge device driven by a pulse line accelerator. A ten-gap pseudospark device was operated at 200 kV, in a nitrogen gas fill pressure of 15 Pa. The typical value of emittance was measured to be 47 mn mrad about 5 cm downstream of the anode plane. The dependence of the beam current, HWHM emittance, the normalized emittance, and the normalized brightness on the axial distance from the anode were obtained. The highest brightness is about 2.7 × 1012A/(mrad)2 near the anode, and is still higher than 1010A/(mrad)2, 160 mm downstream of the anode. Such a high quality electron beam can be used for Raman free electron laser, X ray laser producing, and high power microwave.