Methods and systems are provided for controlling an electron beam generated by an X-ray tube assembly including a unipolar cathode with a long cable between driving electronics of the cathode and the X-ray tube. A voltage supplied to a gridding electrode of the cathode is controlled by a multi-stage switching unit including a first control circuit and a second control circuit. A bias voltage for switching the cathode on is generated by a high precision voltage source of the second control circuit, and a gridding voltage for switching the cathode off is generated by voltage sources of the first control circuit. A time taken to transition between the gridding voltage and the bias voltage is advantageously reduced by decreasing the supplied voltage to a common voltage (e.g., 0 V) in a first step, and then increasing the supplied voltage to the bias voltage or the gridding voltage in a second step.

One or more example embodiments relates to an X-ray source comprising a grid voltage unit including an interface configured to receive a control signal. The grid voltage unit is configured to regulate, via regulation of a first grid voltage at a first grid and via regulation of a second grid voltage at a second grid, a charge quantity available in a capacitor and a generator current as a function of the control signal.

An X-ray source driving circuit and an X-ray generation device using the same are proposed. An objective of the present disclosure is to provide an X-ray source driving circuit having a low possibility of dielectric breakdown and capable of reducing an insulation distance between high voltage circuits, and to provide an X-ray generation device of which the size and weight may be reduced by using the same. To this end, the X-ray generation device includes an X-ray source including a cathode electrode, an anode electrode, and a gate electrode and configured to generate X-rays with a driving voltage applied to each electrode, a first voltage converter including a first transformer and at least one voltage multiplier for multiplying a first voltage output from the first transformer, and a second voltage converter including a second transformer and a voltage multiplier for multiplying a second voltage output from the second transformer.

Methods and systems are provided for controlling an electron beam generated by an x-ray tube assembly including a unipolar cathode. In one embodiment, a voltage supplied to the cathode is controlled by a multi-stage switching unit including a first control circuit and a second control circuit. A bias voltage for switching the cathode on is generated by a voltage source of the second control circuit, and a gridding voltage for switching the cathode off is generated by a plurality of voltage sources of the first control circuit. When transitioning between the bias voltage and the gridding voltage and vice-versa, a control strategy is used where the voltage sources of the first control unit are selectively engaged and/or disengaged in a non-consecutive order in accordance with an optimized protocol, to prevent a voltage imbalance between capacitors of different stages of the multi-stage switching unit.

Some embodiments include an x-ray source, comprising: an anode; a field emitter configured to generate an electron beam; a first grid configured to control field emission from the field emitter; a second grid disposed between the first grid and the anode; a third grid disposed between the first grid and the anode; and a middle electrode disposed between the first grid and the anode wherein the second grid is either disposed between the first grid and middle electrode or between the middle electrode and the anode; wherein the third grid is a mesh grid.

The present invention relates to a device of controlling an electron emission device generating X-rays, the device comprising: an electron emission device including at least one of at least one cathode electrode, an anode electrode paired with the cathode electrode, and a gate electrode for controlling a current flowing through the anode electrode; a cathode current detection part for detecting a current flowing through the cathode electrode of the electrode emission device; a reference voltage generation part for generating a reference voltage; and a gate voltage control part which receives the reference voltage and a detection voltage of the cathode current detection part, determines a gate voltage for controlling the electron emission device so that the detection voltage of the cathode current detection part becomes equal to the reference voltage, and applies the determined gate voltage to the gate electrode of the electron emission device.