Study of Electron Instabilities in Crossed Electric and Magnetic Fields

Crossed-field devices such as cross field amplifiers (CFA) are used in high power radar systems. In our research of cross field devices, electrons are injected into a crossed electric and magnetic field planar structure to observe the physical behavior within the system. The objective is to design and implement electronics to drive Gated Field Emission Arrays (GFEA) that have been fabricated by collaborators at MIT. This experiment will assist with the observation of electron behavior in the crossed-field vacuum environment. Understanding of the onset of electron beam instability in crossed-field devices is not complete. A predesigned controller board is used for electron injection device control to regulate high voltage, and current. An ATXMEGA192A microprocessor on the controller board is responsible for managing much of the input and output data. LABVIEW software communicates to this controller board and will be used to observe and record data for further analysis. Components such as opto-isolator boards, current monitor boards, and an isolation box will ensure the safety of both researchers and hardware.