Electrical breakdown in vacuum

Theories and experimental facts of vacuum breakdown are reviewed. Measurements with gap spacings of 0.015 inch indicate little or no variation of breakdown with tube pressure between approximately 10^-5and 10^-7torr and with frequency of the applied voltage from 0 to 6 Mc/s. Variation of electrode materials, geometry, and surface preparations provide no marked improvements, but high voltage aging or conditioning does improve the breakdown characteristics by a factor of as much as 2 to 1. Enhanced field emission, from whisker-like protrusions on the cathode surface, causes individual beams of field-emission prebreakdown current to flow from cathode to anode. This prebreakdown current can cause resistive heating of the protrusion and localized electron-bombardment anode heating both of which produce vaporization and destructive effects which could lead to breakdown.