Edison effect

Edison effect

Thermionic emission was observed again by Thomas Edison in 1880 while his team was trying to discover the reason for breakage of carbonized bamboo filaments and undesired blackening of the interior surface of the bulbs in his incandescent lamps. This blackening was carbon deposited from the filament and was darkest near the positive end of the filament loop, which apparently cast a light shadow on the glass, as if negatively-charged carbon emanated from the negative end and was attracted towards and sometimes absorbed by the positive end of the filament loop. This projected carbon was deemed "electrical carrying" and initially ascribed to an effect in Crookes tubes where negatively-charged cathode rays from ionized gas move from a negative to a positive electrode. To try to redirect the charged carbon particles to a separate electrode instead of the glass, Edison did a series of experiments (a first inconclusive one is in his notebook on 13 February 1880) such as the following successful one: