DESIGN AND OPERATING EXPERIENCE OF TRIODE ELECTRON GUNS

arvjain @ barc.gov.in The Accelerator and Pulse Power Division of BARC is presently constructing three industrial electron accelerators for radiation applications. a) a 500keV, 10 KW Cockcroft-Walton accelerator b) a 10MeV, 10kW electron linac and c) a 3MeV, 30kW DC machine. While the DC machines require an almost parallel beam with less than 1.0 degree divergence, the RF linac gun requires a 50keV, 2 ampere pulsed beam of low emittance. Using relativistic electron optics, including space charge effects, very simple triode gun designs with flat cathode, grid and anode apertures which fulfil these requirements and are easy to fabricate experimentally are described. Our operating experience with these guns are also described