The influence of guiding magnetic field on beam current and plasma expansion in foil-less diode

The impedance collapse phenomenon in planar diodes has been widely investigated and is believed to be induced by the axial plasma expansion. However, there are few studies about the impedance collapse phenomenon in foil-less diodes, which may occur under a low guiding magnetic field and cannot be explained by the axial plasma expansion. This paper tries to explain this phenomenon by constructing a physical model with consideration of the radial expansion of cathode plasmas. Our physical model can quantitatively describe the formation process of beam current in experiments with reasonable parameters, and it demonstrates that a lower guiding magnetic field will lead to a faster radial plasma expansion speed. (C) 2015 AIP Publishing LLC.