Periodic magnetic focusing of sheet electron beams*

Abstract

Sheet electron beams focused by periodically cusped magnetic (PCM) fields are stable against low-frequency velocity-shear instabilities (such as the diocotron mode). This is in contrast to the more familiar unstable behavior in uniform solenoidal magnetic fields. A period-averaged analytic model shows that a PCM-focused beam is stabilized by ponderomotive forces for short PCM periods. Numerical particle simulations for a semi-infinite sheet beam verify this prediction and also indicate diocotron stability for long PCM periods is less constraining than providing for space-charge confinement and trajectory stability in the PCM focusing system. In this article the issue of beam matching and side focusing for sheet beams of finite width is also discussed. A review of past and present theoretical and experimental investigations of sheet-beam transport is presented.