electron tube

Electron emission

In its most general sense, the emission of electrons results from directing energy in the form of heat, atomic-scale collisions, or strong electric fields to the cathode in such a way that electrons within the material are given enough kinetic energy to escape the surface. The most widely used mechanism in vacuum tubes is thermionic emission, or electron emission by application of heat.

The amount of energy needed to release electrons from a given material is known as its electronic work function. It follows that the ideal materials for cathodes are those that yield the lowest electronic work function. Barium, strontium, and thorium are commonly used for cathodes because of their low electronic work functions, from 1.2 to 3.5 electron volts (eV). Newer experimental materials, such as scandate (an alloy of barium and scandium oxide), have been discovered with slightly lower electronic work functions.

The anode, meanwhile, is usually made of a good conductor—such as iron, nickel, or carbon—that does not readily emit electrons at typical operating temperatures.

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Electron motion in a vacuum

Fundamental to all electron devices are the dynamics of charged particles under different electric and magnetic fields. The motion of an electron in a uniform field is given by a simple application of Isaac Newton’s second law of motion, force = mass × acceleration, in which the force is exerted on the electron by an applied electric field E (measured in volts per metre). Mathematically, the equation of motion of an electron in a uniform field is given by in which e is the electron charge 1.60 × 10⁻¹⁹ coulombs, E denotes the field in volts per metre, m is the electron mass 9.109 × 10⁻³¹ kilogram, and dv/dt denotes the rate of change of velocity, which is the electron’s acceleration.

If a magnetic field is also present, the electron will experience a second force, but only when the electron is in motion. The force will then be proportional to the product of charge and the velocity component that is perpendicular to the electric field E and to the magnetic flux density B (measured in webers per square centimetre). The force will be directed perpendicular to both the electric field and the electron velocity. Thus, an electron traveling parallel to an electric field and at right angles to a uniform magnetic field will be deflected in a direction perpendicular to both magnetic and electric fields. Because the force is constantly perpendicular to the velocity, the electron will trace out a perfectly circular trajectory and will maintain that motion at a rate called the cyclotron frequency, ω_c, given by e/mB. The circle traced out by the electron has a radius equal to mv/eB. This circular motion is exploited in many electron devices for generating or amplifying radio-frequency (RF) power.

An electron traveling parallel to a uniform magnetic field is unaffected by that field, but any departure from parallelism gives rise to a perpendicular component of velocity and thus a force. This force gives the nearly parallel electron a helical motion about the direction of the magnetic field, keeping it from diverging far from the parallel path. The equation of motion in any of these instances is where v is the velocity of the electron in metres per second in the perpendicular direction to the plane of B and v, and θ is the angle between the directions of B and v. The magnetic flux density is expressed in webers per square centimetre (1 weber per centimetre² = 10⁴ gauss = 10⁷/4π amperes per metre).

Of interest, too, is the situation in which the magnetic and electric fields are perpendicular to each other. This configuration is used in beam-focusing devices as well as in a class of devices called magnetrons (see the section Magnetrons). In this case the motion of the electrons is a combination of translation and circular trajectories. The resultant trajectory is a cycloid.

Equations (3) and (4) are sufficient to solve for the path and time of transit of electrons in an electron tube except that they require E and B to be known, and these may depend on the presence of electrons or ions. The currents in electron tubes are small enough in most cases that their effect on the magnetic field is usually negligible. The cumulative effect of the electron or ion charge (called space charge) on the electric field cannot always be neglected, however, and this introduces computational difficulty unless the geometry is simple. Furthermore, the electrode currents are so dependent on space charges that the performance characteristics of electron tubes are largely determined by these charges. The electric field with or without space charge can be determined by Gauss’s theorem of electrostatics, which states how electric fields are associated with charges. Basically, the rate of change of E with distance is equal to ρ/ε₀, in which ρ is the electric charge density in coulombs per metre, and ε₀is the permittivity 8.85 × 10⁻¹² farads per metre.

The current per unit area, i, entering any surface—as that of an electrode in a tube—is the time rate of change of charge at that surface. This current is the sum of two components, one constituting the actual arrival of electrons at the electrode and the other resulting from the change of induced charge by any change of the electric field with time. Thus, i is the sum of ρv + ε₀dE/dt, where v is the electron density and dE/dt is the time-varying electric field. At low frequencies of operation or under steady conditions, the second term is not important. The contrary is true at high frequencies. This equation and the one relating the electric fields to the charges are fundamental to all high-vacuum electron tube phenomena and are sufficient to obtain theoretical solutions.

Energy transfer

The fundamental importance of a large class of electronic devices lies in their ability to amplify power. This power amplification results from the conversion of the energy stored in an external power supply to an output energy in the load circuit of the electron device. The mechanism that makes this conversion possible is the electron’s change in kinetic energy as it is accelerated or decelerated by an electric field. Because energy is conserved, the RF field will increase (amplification) if the electrons lose kinetic energy, and, conversely, it will decrease if the electrons gain kinetic energy.

When a modulated electron convection current flows in an electric field of the same modulation frequency, the power transfer, P, between the field and the electron is given by where l_c is the electron convection current and E is the electric field. Both l_c and E are complex quantities; substituting their values into equation (5) and separating the real and imaginary parts yieldsin which ϕ_l and ϕ_E are the phase angles of the modulated convection current and electric field, respectively. Insight into the meaning of equations (6) and (7) may be obtained by considering a physical picture. The negative electron flow (convection current) may be supposed to induce positive charges on the electrodes from which the E field emanates. If the phase is proper, meaning that the induced charges constructively add to the current associated with the modulated E field, the E field grows. Thus, in equations (6) and (7), and becomes zero. Conversely, if the phases are 180° apart, goes to zero, and and power is transferred from the field to the electron current. In practice, different methods are used to produce density modulation in an electron beam (see below).