Innovative Applications of Plasma Discharge for Power and Propulsion Technology

Explosive electron emission cathodes for microwave applications offer the potential to provide high efficiency electron guns due to larger current densities and direct modulations of emitted beams. This research is motivated by the desire to develop aminiaturized klystron using efficient, reliable and cost-effective cathode arrays and to explore the operation of cold-cathode arrays in vacuum electronic devices.Compact size and lightweight of klystrons, with high peak power, narrow band, low duty-cycle, low pulse repetition frequency, reduced applied voltage, is important for airborne and space applications. Multi-beam klystrons look very promising in thoseareas, especially in the high frequency regime.