CHAPTER 5 Diode and Triode Valves and Basic Associated Circuits The Construction of a Diode. A diode valve consists essen- tially of a heated conductor emitting electrons which are attracted, or repelled by a surrounding plate,.or anode, depending on whether the potential on this plate is positive or negative with SPRING is TUNGSTEN FLAMENT yar 9 amare COATED WITH ALUMINA INSULATION Fie. 29. a, A Filamentary Type Cathode, b, An Indirectly Heated Cathode,” ¢, A Double-diode Valve. respect to the emitter. The emitter, being usually at a negative potential with respect to the plate, is termed the cathode, and may be either of the filamentary type (fig. 29a), or the indirectly heated type (fig. 29b). In general, the directly heated filament is used when the heating current is steady D.C., from a battery, whereas the indirectly heated cathode is used when the heating current is alternating, supplied by an A.C. transformer.* A glass pinch (fig. 29c) is formed by pressing glass on to lead-in wires consisting of nickel rods which are electrically welded to thin, copper-clad nickel-iron wires.. Such copper-clad wire, when treated with borax flux, will make a vacuum-tight seal into glass. * Exceptions oocur inthe case of valves'such as the PX4, and PX25, which have filaments of sufficiently large thermal capacity, and so thermal lag, to permit direct heating by A.C. -‘The inverted V- or M-shaped filament is suspended by a hook under the tension of a spring from the top mica bridge, so as to be along the mid-plane of the nickel anode, and is welded at the bottom to the nickel rods which are fused into the pinch. A shaped, glass envelope is placed over the assembly, and fused to the flange at the pinch base by rotation of the valve inside a circular array of gas-air jets. The exhaust tube, through which the valve is evacuated by the pumping system, is joined to an aperture just below the pressed glass of the pinch. This tube is sealed off by applying a jet-flame near the base of the valve after exhaustion and activation are completed. The pinch wires are then threaded through the pegs of a moulded bakelite valve cap, and soldered to the tips of theso pegs, the cap being joined by pakelite cement to the glass envelope. Thus a mechanically robust structure is obtained. ‘When a valve has been oxhausted of air by a mechanical rotary vacuum pump it is baked in an oven at 300° to 400° C., the anode is heated to some 900° C. by an eddy-current furnace, the filament: “flashed”, and finally, the “getter” volatilised. The getter is in the form of a magnesium strip, or copper-clad barium pellet supported by a metal disk which is placed near the valve pinch, away from the main electrodes. The temperature of this disk is raised to yellow heat by eddy-currents produced by a powerful radio-frequency oscillator so that the barium or magnesium volatilises and the active metal vapour produced combines chemi- cally with any residual gas in the valve to “fix” it in the form of a low vapour-pressure magnesium or barium compound on the glass walls of the tube. The getter deposit appears as a silver mirror if it is magnesium, whereas a brownish-silver deposit is obtained if barium is used. The final vacuum produced by this means is of the order of 10-# mm. Hg. At such a low pressure the electrons emitted from the cathode will be permitted a free path of about 400 om., unobstructed by gas molecules. Manifestly, there will be little possibility of ionisation of the residual gas by collision so that, for most practical purposes, such a vacuum is adequate. The Action of a Diode. Ifa diode valve is placed in the electric test circuit of fig. 30, its electrical behaviour can be investigated. Tf the anode is positive, the negative electrons will be attracted to it to form an anode current, recorded by the series milliammeter. If the H.T. battery is reversed, making the anode negative, then no anode current will flow since the emitted electrons are repelled. As a positive potential on the anode is raised the anode current increases until a saturation effect is produced, when further anode potential increase does not.cause any further appreciable rise of anode current. The diode characteristic curve of anode current 1, plotted against anode voltage V’,, has the form shown in fig. 30a: ‘SATURATION ANODE CuRRENT (lA) Pl, CURRENT LIMITED ‘BY SPACE~CHARGE a _ ° + anove voLTs (V4) Fia, 30. a, Characteriatic Curve of a Diode Valve. b, Circuit for obtaining the Diode Characteristic. Explanation of the Shape of the Characteristic Curves. The factors determining the shape of this characteristic are (a) the total cathode emission, (b) the space-charge effect, and (c) the Schottky effect. (a) The total cathode emission is determined by the insertion of the appropriate values of the constants A,, T’ and b in equation (42), the material used as emitter being usually, nowadays, the barium oxide-strontium oxide mixture described on p. 34, operated at a temperature of approximately 800°C. (=1073° K.). The Richardson equation gives the emission in amperes per square centimetre, so it must be multiplied by the effective area of the cathode coating in a particular case. This cathode emission is, at specified operating conditions, constant. All the electrons emitted do not reach the anode, however, because of the space- charge effect. : (6) The space-charge effect is of paramount importance indeciding the action of all types of radio valve. Electrons, stream- ing from.the cathode with an average velocity of 0-3 electron- volt imparted to them thermally, will not have achieved much acceleration towards the attracting anode when they have only just left the emitter. Being all charged negatively they will repel one another, and tend to repel further electrons being emitted from the cathode. This negative-charged electron cluster will also partially shield the effect of the attraction of the anode on the cathode. Moreover, on leaving, an electron induces an equal positive charge on the cathode which tends to pull it back again. ‘This space-charge will control the number of electrons which reach the anode, since only those emitted with sufficiently high thermal velocities will be able to penetrate to the anode. As the anode potential is raised positively, so the space-charge effect will be reduced because the electrons receive greater accelerations towards the anode, tending to prohibit the formation of a space- charge. At the saturation anode-potential the-space-charge will, for this reason, disappear, and all the thermally emitted electrons will reach the anode, giving the saturation anode current. A further increase of anode voltage cannot then produce any further anode current rise. ‘The potential distribution between a plane-parallel cathode and anode is represented by a straight line graph ab in fig: 316, when the cathode is cold, and the anode positive. On raising the cathode temperature electrons are emitted, and with moderate anode potentials, a space-charge forms near the cathode. The potential in the field in the region near the cathode will then be more negative than before, the curved graph acb representing the distribution. Depending on the amount of emission and the anode potential, so the dip in the potential distribution curves will be more or less pronounced. If such curves as these are compared with the graph. of fig. 12, representing the distribution of velocities amongst thermally emitted electrons at a particular temperature, it will be realised that only those electrons with sufficient thermally im- parted speeds will be able to penetrate the space-charge region, and reach the anode, Since there are, depending on the prevailing conditions, a definite fraction of emitted electrons with velocities above a specified value, so the anode current will be a definite amount (cf. Maxwell’s distribution law, p. 30). Increasing the PLANE snvasia / POTENTIAL Mision NEAR CATHODE DUE ‘Yo smace-cHarce FRACTION oF Tora, == ~=~~ Tanabe mE POTENTIAL, + ) », Potential Distribution in a Diode. ‘CATHODE FORM SPACE ‘CHARGE 1F ANODE. POTENTIAL LOW 3 2 3 LEAVING CATHODE RETURN AGAIN ON ENCOUNTERING NEGATIVE SPACE~CHARGE 9 4, The Space-charge Effect. Fie. 31.