A Nickel Coated Copper Substrate as a Hydrogen Evolution Catalyst

Replacing precious metals with low-cost metals is the best solution for large scale production. Copper is known for its excellent conductivity and thermal management applications. When it comes to hydrogen evolution reaction, it is highly unstable, especially in KOH solution. In this paper, we approached a simple method to reduce corrosion and improve the performance by depositing nickel-molybdenum oxide and nickel on copper substrates and the achieved tafel slopes of 115 mV/dec and 117 mV/dec at 10 mA/cm2. While at first, molybdenum oxide coated samples showed better performance after 100 cycles of stability tests, the onset potential rapidly changed. Cu–Ni, which was deposited using the electron gun evaporation (e-gun), has shown better performance with 0.28 V at 10 mA/cm2 and led to stability after 100 cycles. Our results show that when copper is alloyed with nickel, it acts as a promising hydrogen evolution reaction (HER) catalyst.

Simulation studies of beam dynamics in 50 MeV linear accelerator with laser-plasma electron gun

Conventionally, electron guns with thermionic cathodes or field-emission cathodes are used for research or technological linear accelerators. RF-photoguns are used to provide the short electron bunches which could be used for FEL’s of compact research facilities to generate monochromatic photons. Low energy of emitted electrons is the key problem for photoguns due to high influence of Coulomb field and difficulties with the first accelerating cell simulation and construction. Contrary, plasma sources, based on the laser-plasma wakefield acceleration, have very high acceleration gradient but rather broad energy spectrum compared with conventional thermoguns or field-emission guns. The beam dynamics in the linear accelerator combines the laser-plasma electron source and conventional RF linear accelerator is discussed in this paper. Method to capture and re-accelerate the short picosecond bunch with extremely broad energy spread (up to 50 %) is presented. Numerical simulation shows that such bunches can be accelerated in RF linear accelerator to the energy of 50 MeV with output energy spread not higher than 1 % .

REMOTE MEASUREMENT OF FIRE PARAMETERS OF THE INDUSTRIAL ACCELERATOR ELECTRON GUN

A device designed for continuous remote control of the parameters of the incandescent circuit of the electronic gun of the accelerator LU-10 has been developed. The created device allows to measure with galvanic isolation of electric quantities of operating voltage and current which are under potential of 5 kV concerning the earth bus.

Hollow cathode gun for electron beam annealing

An electron gun with a hollow cathode was tuned to be used in electron beam annealing. Electron beams with an energy of 1 keV and a current of 100 mA were obtained. It is shown that the diameter of the electron beam varies in the range from 7 to 5 mm, while the specific power is from 2·105 to 2·104 W/m2. Such electron beams have a soft, non-destructive effect on the surface and are suitable for electron beam annealing of various films.

Absolute efficiency of a two-stage microchannel plate for electrons in the 30 - 900 eV energy range

We report on an apparatus able to measure the absolute detection efficiency of a detector for electrons in the 30 - 900 eV range. In particular, we discuss the characterisation of a two-stage chevron microchannel plate (MCP). The measurements have been performed in the LASEC laboratory at Roma Tre University, whit a custom-made electron gun. The very good stability of the beam current in the fA range, together with the picoammeter nominal resolution of 0.01 fA, allowed the measurement of the MCP absolute efficiency ε. We found an ε = (0.489±0.003) with no evident energy dependence. We fully characterised the MCP pulse shape distribution, which is quasi-Gaussian with a well visible peak above the noise level. We measured a 68% variation of the average pulse height between 30 and 500 eV. Furthermore, with a deeper analysis of the pulse shape, and in particular of the correlation between pulse height, area and width, we found a method to discriminate single- and multi- electron events occurring within a 10 ns time window.

Electron beam-plasma discharge in GDT mirror trap: Experiments on plasma start-up with electron gun

The paper describes experiments on the injection of an electron beam into a gas at the Gas Dynamic Trap (GDT) and develops a technique for creating a starting plasma with parameters sufficient for its subsequent heating by neutral beams. It is found that a relatively thin electron beam is capable of ionizing plasma in the entire volume of the trap, and the plasma turbulence it excites is capable of accelerating some of the electrons to energies tens of times higher than the initial energy of the beam. It is shown that, in contrast to early experiments on tabletop open traps, collective beam relaxation under GDT conditions occurs in the vicinity of the entrance magnetic mirror. Since the electron cyclotron frequency in this region significantly exceeds the plasma frequency, it is necessary to study the mechanism of a beam-plasma discharge under these conditions. As a first step along this path, we measure the radial diffusion coefficient of fast particles, as well as the rate at which they gain energy.

Relativistic versus Nonrelativistic Approaches to a Low Perveance High Quality Matched Beam for a High Efficiency Ka-Band Klystron

Advanced technical solution for the design of a low perveance electron gun with a high quality beam dedicated to high power Ka-band klystrons is presented in this paper. The proposed electron gun can be used to feed linear accelerating structures at 36 GHz with an estimated input power of 20 MW, thus achieving an effective accelerating electric field in the (100–150) MV/m range. Additionally, in the framework of the Compact Light XLS project, a short Ka-band accelerating structure providing an integrated voltage of at least 15 MV, has been proposed for bunch-phase linearization. For the klystron, a very small beam dimension is needed and the presented electron gun responds to this requirement. An estimate of the rotational velocity at beam edge indicates that the diamagnetic field due to rotational currents are small compared to the longitudinal volume. A detailed analysis of how this has been achieved, including compression of the beam, rotation in the magnetic field, and analysis of the subsequently generated diamagnetic field has been discussed.

Investigation of the thermal state of the elements of a technological electron beam gun under long–term operating conditions

The paper presents the results of a study of the thermal state of the elements of the cathode assembly of the ELA–15 welding electron gun. It was revealed that in short–term operating modes of the gun (up to 60 minutes) at any energy parameters of heating the hexaboride cathode, it is possible not to use forced cooling of the cathode assembly. The case temperature in such modes did not exceed 30°C. The increase in the temperature of the gun body occurred 15 minutes after the start of heating the cathode. In long–term operating modes with forced cooling of the gun, the temperature of the gun body increased by 2 – 3°C and remained stable throughout the operation. When the cooling was turned off, the temperature of the gun body reached a critical value in 60 minutes. The section of natural cooling of the cathode obtained in the work, which appears when the heating of the cathode is stopped, is well approximated by a power function. It is convenient to use this dependence to verify the mathematical model of the thermal state of the electron gun.