Triveni Rao

We discuss our investigation of electron trapping in a diamond amplifier (DA). Our previous work demonstrated that some electrons reaching the DA’s hydrogenated surface are not emitted. The state and the removal of these electrons is important for DA applications. We found that these stopped electrons are trapped, and cannot be removed by a strong reversed-polarity electric field; to neutralize this surface charge, holes must be sent to the hydrogenated surface to recombine with the trapped electrons through the Shockley-Read-Hall surface-recombination mechanism. We measured the time taken for such recombination on the hydrogenated surface, viz. the recombination time, as less than 5 ns, limited by the resolution of our test system. With this measurement, we demonstrated that DA could be operated in an rf cavity with frequency of a few hundred megahertz. DOI: http://dx.doi.org/10.1103/PhysRevSTAB.15.013501 Published by the American Physical Society under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution 3.0 License. Further distribution of this work must maintain attribution to the author(s) and the published article’s title, journal citation, and DOI. Published by the American Physical Society

A promising new concept of a diamond amplified photocathode for generation of high-current, high-brightness, and low thermal emittance electron beams was recently proposed and is currently under active development. To better understand the different effects involved, we have been developing models, within the VORPAL computational framework, to simulate secondary electron generation and charge transport in diamond. The implemented models include inelastic scattering of electrons and holes for generation of electron-hole pairs, elastic, phonon, and charge impurity scattering. We will discuss these models and present results from 3D VORPAL simulations on charge gain and collection efficiency as a function of primary electron energy and applied electric field. The implemented modeling capabilities already allow us to investigate specific effects and compare simulation results with experimental data.

The secondary emission enhanced photoinjector (SEEP) is a very promising new approach to the generation of high-current, high-brightness electron beams. Primary electrons with a few thousand electron-volts of energy strike a specially prepared diamond window. The large Secondary Electron Yield (SEY) provides a multiplication of the number of electrons by about two orders of magnitude. The secondary electrons drift through the diamond under an electric field and emerge into the accelerating proper of the “gun” through a Negative Electron Affinity (NEA) surface of the diamond (Hydrogen terminated). We present the calculation of heating power sources and the temperature distribution in detail. Some properties of the secondary electron beam related to beam dynamics are also reported. The results demonstrate the feasibility of this kind of cathode.