Recently cold cathodes based on field emission have drawn attention and been considered to drive accelerators and free electron lasers, due to the progress in field emitter arrays and planar emitters like diamond films. In this paper, we reviewed the characteristics of field emission in rf fields. Simulations of S-band rf guns consisting of a cathode cell and a full cell were done. We showed that a shorter cathode cell with a length of 0.25–0.3 of $\lambda /2$ is in favor of obtaining both low emittance and low energy spread bunches when the amplitude of electric field on the cathode surface ranges from 60 to $80\mathrm{MV}/\mathrm{m}$. A single cell test cavity has been installed to study field emission of diamond films and the measured beam current showed a good agreement with theoretical calculations.

• Received 19 August 2013

DOI:https://doi.org/10.1103/PhysRevSTAB.16.123401

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Published by the American Physical Society