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Abstract
A new source of an electron beam with laser heating of the cathode is presented. The general description, the main parameters and the arrangement of the electron beam source are given. The cathode assembly and its operation features are described, which consist in controlling the emission current from the cathode by changing the cathode temperature by controlling the laser heating power. With this method, due to the heat capacity of the cathode and the parts nearby, the time to reach the set current level of the source from the moment the laser power is applied is several seconds. A method is proposed to reduce this time to fractions of a second by forcing the heating power at the beginning of turning on the heating and introducing preheating, and it is also proposed to stabilize the source current by introducing feedback of the heating power control signal with the current signal of the high-voltage source of the electron gun.
The source current control range is discussed.