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SOME EXPERIMENTS ON ELECTRICAL CONDUCTION IN VACUUM

Technical Report ·
OSTI ID:4293143

The conduction of electricity through a vacuum was investigated in high voltage generators using beta emitters as current sources, The voltage attained by the generators was limited by vacuum conduction to values of tens to a few hundreds of kilovolts. The leakage current responsible for this limitation in most cases was found to consist of an exchange of charged particles between the two electrodes. The adsorption of contaminants on electrode surfaces was found to decrease the voltage at which appreciable vacuum conduction began to occur. In the systems studied, less than a monolayer of a slightly volatile material adsorbed on the anode surface had a marked effect. The nature of the positive particles was investigated by a mass spectrometric technique, and the secondary production coefficients involved in the exchange were studied. (auth)

Research Organization:
Washington Univ., St. Louis
NSA Number:
NSA-13-009084
OSTI ID:
4293143
Report Number(s):
AECU-3989
Country of Publication:
United States
Language:
English