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Thyratron
A thyratron is a type of gas-filled tube used as a high-power electrical switch and controlled rectifier. Thyratrons can handle much greater currents than similar hard-vacuum tubes. Electron multiplication occurs when the gas becomes ionized, producing a phenomenon known as a Townsend discharge. Gases used include mercury vapor, xenon, neon, and (in special high-voltage applications or applications requiring very short switching times) hydrogen. Unlike a vacuum tube (valve), a thyratron cannot be used to amplify signals linearly. In the 1920s, thyratrons were derived from early vacuum tubes such as the UV-200, which contained a small amount of argon gas to increase its sensitivity as a radio signal detector, and the German LRS relay tube, which also contained argon gas. Gas rectifiers, which predated vacuum tubes, such as the argon-filled General Electric " Tungar bulb" and the Cooper-Hewitt mercury-pool rectifier, also provided an influence. Irving Langmuir and G. S. Meikle ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Gas-filled Tube
A gas-filled tube, also commonly known as a discharge tube or formerly as a Julius Plücker, Plücker tube, is an arrangement of electrodes in a gas within an dielectric, insulating, temperature-resistant envelope. Gas-filled tubes exploit phenomena related to electric discharge in gases, and operate by ionisation, ionizing the gas with an applied voltage sufficient to cause electrical conduction by the underlying phenomena of the Townsend discharge. A gas-discharge lamp is an electric light using a gas-filled tube; these include fluorescent lamps, metal-halide lamps, sodium-vapor lamps, and neon lights. Specialized gas-filled tubes such as krytrons, thyratrons, and ignitrons are used as switching devices in electric devices. The voltage required to initiate and sustain discharge is dependent on the pressure and composition of the fill gas and geometry of the tube. Although the envelope is typically glass, power tubes often use ceramics, and military tubes often use glass-line ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Thyristor
A thyristor (, from a combination of Greek language ''θύρα'', meaning "door" or "valve", and ''transistor'' ) is a solid-state semiconductor device which can be thought of as being a highly robust and switchable diode, allowing the passage of current in one direction but not the other, often under control of a gate electrode, that is used in high power applications like inverters and radar generators. It usually consists of four layers of alternating P- and N-type materials. It acts as a bistable switch (or a latch). There are two designs, differing in what triggers the conducting state. In a three-lead thyristor, a small current on its gate lead controls the larger current of the anode-to-cathode path. In a two-lead thyristor, conduction begins when the potential difference between the anode and cathode themselves is sufficiently large (breakdown voltage). The thyristor continues conducting until the voltage across the device is reverse-biased or the voltage is removed (b ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Pseudospark Switch
The pseudospark switch is a gas-filled tube capable of high speed switching. Pseudospark switches are functionally similar to triggered spark gaps. Advantages of pseudospark switches include the ability to carry reverse currents (up to 100%), low pulse, high lifetime, and a high current rise of about 1012 Ampere, A/sec. In addition, since the cathode is not heated prior to switching, the standby power is approximately one order of magnitude lower than in thyratrons. However, pseudospark switches have undesired plasma phenomena at low peak currents. Issues such as current quenching, chopping, and electrical impedance, impedance fluctuations occur at currents less than 2–3 kA while at very high peak currents (20–30 kA) a transition to a metal vapor arc occurs which leads to erosion of the electrodes. Construction A pseudospark switch's electrodes (cathode and anode) have central holes approximately 3 to 5 mm in diameter. Behind the cathode and anode lie a Hollow c ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Vacuum Tube
A vacuum tube, electron tube, thermionic valve (British usage), or tube (North America) is a device that controls electric current flow in a high vacuum between electrodes to which an electric voltage, potential difference has been applied. It takes the form of an evacuated tubular envelope of glass or sometimes metal containing electrodes connected to external connection pins. The type known as a thermionic tube or thermionic valve utilizes thermionic emission of electrons from a hot cathode for fundamental Electronics, electronic functions such as signal amplifier, amplification and current Rectifier, rectification. Non-thermionic types such as vacuum phototubes achieve electron emission through the photoelectric effect, and are used for such purposes as the detection of light and measurement of its intensity. In both types the electrons are accelerated from the cathode to the anode by the electric field in the tube. The first, and simplest, vacuum tube, the diode or Flem ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Control Grid
The control grid is an electrode used in amplifying thermionic valves (vacuum tubes) such as the triode, tetrode and pentode, used to control the flow of electrons from the cathode to the anode (plate) electrode. The control grid usually consists of a cylindrical screen or helix of fine wire surrounding the cathode, and is surrounded in turn by the anode. The control grid was invented by Lee De Forest, who in 1906 added a grid to the Fleming valve ( thermionic diode) to create the first amplifying vacuum tube, the Audion (triode). Operation In a valve, the hot cathode emits negatively charged electrons, which are attracted to and captured by the anode, which is given a positive voltage by a power supply. The control grid between the cathode and anode functions as a "gate" to control the current of electrons reaching the anode. A more negative voltage on the grid will repel the electrons back toward the cathode so fewer get through to the anode. A less negative, or posi ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Hot Cathode
In vacuum tubes and gas-filled tubes, a hot cathode or thermionic cathode is a cathode electrode which is heated to make it emit electrons due to thermionic emission. This is in contrast to a cold cathode, which does not have a heating element. The heating element is usually an electrical filament heated by a separate electric current passing through it. Hot cathodes typically achieve much higher power density than cold cathodes, emitting significantly more electrons from the same surface area. Cold cathodes rely on field electron emission or secondary electron emission from positive ion bombardment, and do not require heating. There are two types of hot cathode. In a ''directly heated cathode'', the filament is the cathode and emits the electrons. In an ''indirectly heated cathode'', the filament or ''heater'' heats a separate metal cathode electrode which emits the electrons. From the 1920s to the 1960s, a wide variety of electronic devices used hot-cathode vacuum tubes. ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Cold Cathode
A cold cathode is a cathode that is not electrically heated by a Electrical filament, filament.A negatively charged electrode emits electrons or is the positively charged terminal. For more, see field emission. A cathode may be considered "cold" if it emits more electrons than can be supplied by thermionic emission alone. It is used in Gas discharge lamp, gas-discharge lamps, such as neon lamps, discharge tubes, and some types of vacuum tube. The other type of cathode is a hot cathode, which is heated by electric current passing through a Electrical filament, filament. A cold cathode does not necessarily operate at a low temperature: it is often heated to its operating temperature by other methods, such as the current passing from the cathode into the gas. Cold-cathode devices A cold-cathode vacuum tube does not rely on external heating of an electrode to provide thermionic emission of electrons. Early cold-cathode devices included the Geissler tube and Julius Plücker, Plucker ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Paschen's Law
Paschen's law is an equation that gives the breakdown voltage, that is, the voltage necessary to start a discharge or electric arc, between two electrodes in a gas as a function of pressure and gap length. It is named after Friedrich Paschen who discovered it empirically in 1889. Paschen studied the breakdown voltage of various gases between parallel metal plates as the gas pressure and gap distance were varied: * With a constant gap length, the voltage necessary to Electric arc, arc across the gap decreased as the pressure was reduced and then increased gradually, exceeding its original value. * With a constant pressure, the voltage needed to cause an arc reduced as the gap size was reduced but only to a point. As the gap was reduced further, the voltage required to cause an arc began to rise and again exceeded its original value. For a given gas, the voltage is a function only of the product of the pressure and gap length. The curve he found of voltage versus the pressure-gap ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Voltage
Voltage, also known as (electrical) potential difference, electric pressure, or electric tension, is the difference in electric potential between two points. In a Electrostatics, static electric field, it corresponds to the Work (electrical), work needed per unit of Electric charge, charge to move a positive Test particle#Electrostatics, test charge from the first point to the second point. In the SI unit, International System of Units (SI), the SI derived unit, derived unit for voltage is the ''volt'' (''V''). The voltage between points can be caused by the build-up of electric charge (e.g., a capacitor), and from an electromotive force (e.g., electromagnetic induction in a Electric generator, generator). On a macroscopic scale, a potential difference can be caused by electrochemical processes (e.g., cells and batteries), the pressure-induced piezoelectric effect, and the thermoelectric effect. Since it is the difference in electric potential, it is a physical Scalar (physics ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Space Charge
Space charge is an interpretation of a collection of electric charges in which excess electric charge is treated as a continuum of charge distributed over a region of space (either a volume or an area) rather than distinct point-like charges. This model typically applies when charge carriers have been emitted from some region of a solid—the cloud of emitted carriers can form a space charge region if they are sufficiently spread out, or the charged atoms or molecules left behind in the solid can form a space charge region. Space charge effects are most pronounced in dielectric media (including vacuum); in highly conductive media, the charge tends to be rapidly neutralized or screened. The sign of the space charge can be either negative or positive. This situation is perhaps most familiar in the area near a metal object when it is heated to incandescence in a vacuum. This effect was first observed by Thomas Edison in light bulb filaments, where it is sometimes called the Edison ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Plasma (physics)
Plasma () is a state of matter characterized by the presence of a significant portion of charged particles in any combination of ions or electrons. It is the most abundant form of ordinary matter in the universe, mostly in stars (including the Sun), but also dominating the rarefied intracluster medium and Outer space#Intergalactic space, intergalactic medium. Plasma can be artificially generated, for example, by heating a neutral gas or subjecting it to a strong electromagnetic field. The presence of charged particles makes plasma electrically conductive, with the dynamics of individual particles and macroscopic plasma motion governed by collective electromagnetic fields and very sensitive to externally applied fields. The response of plasma to electromagnetic fields is used in many modern devices and technologies, such as plasma display, plasma televisions or plasma etching. Depending on temperature and density, a certain number of neutral particles may also be present, in wh ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
