ABSTRACT
In the work [1] devoted to the development of science, Academician M.A. Markov noted that along with the continuous development of high-energy physics it is necessary to develop the physics of beams of relatively low energy but high intensity. Moreover, such beams can have almost unlimited possibilities of practical application in engineering, medicine, and the national economy. In particular, high-current relativistic electron beams can be used to heat the plasma to the thermonuclear temperature, to develop new methods for collective ion acceleration, to study phase transformations in a solid and the properties of materials, and to generate and amplify microwave radiation. For these purposes, electron beams should have the following parameters: electron energy 0.3-30 MeV, beam current 1-100 kA, pulse duration 10-500 ns. Relativistic high-frequency electronics deals with high-current electron beams with the above parameters. Such beams are formed by cold explosive-emission cathodes, for the creation of which high electric field strengths of hundreds and more kilovolts per centimeter are required.
