IONIZATION GAUGE CHARACTERISTICS OF THE SA1463 TRIODE ELECTRON TUBE AND EFFECTS OF INTERNAL GAS PRESSURE ON PULSE EMISSION AND ARCING

摘要

It is often desirable to know the absolute magnitudes of the internal pressures in hot cathode vacuum tubes in order to measure and interpret the effects of changes in the cathode coating or in tube processing on emission and arcing behavior. In situ pressure measurement is particularly important for hot cathode tubes in which reactive pumping is an important process. For that purpose, a special SA1463 triode radar oscillator vacuum tube that was designed to be operated inside and open to a high vacuum system was calibrated and characterized as an ionization gauge in three circuits. One circuit is an external control circuit (ionizing electrons accelerated to the grid and ions collected at the plate), another an internal control circuit (ionizing electrons accelerated through the grid to the plate and ions collected at the grid) for a Sandia (SLA) grid current test product specification, and the third an internal control circuit used by General Electric, Owensboro (GEO) for an information gas test.