The construction characteristics and the performances of an x‐ray diode working at 200 Hz are described. The temporal behavior of both the plasma cathode emission and the diode discharge has been studied, including the measurements of vacuum effects on the repetition rate and lifetime capability, preionization versus electrical features, and ionization density versus dosage. This simple and low‐cost x‐ray diode has been used to uniformly preionize a half‐liter XeCl laser, delivering an output laser energy of 800 mJ/shot at a 100 Hz repetition rate.