Astigmatic electron gun for the beam-indexing color television display

Though the beam-indexing color television display has some obvious advantages when compared with other display systems, the electron-optical demands are very high. First, these demands and the imaging system to be used are discussed. It turns out that the beam must be astigmatic to obtain optimum performance. The beam shape is prescribed by the deflection-coil design. This beam shape, giving rise to a vertically elongated spot of sufficiently small dimensions, is obtained by using an astigmatic gun of special design in combination with a simple rotation-symmetrical focusing lens. After a general discussion of the focusing properties of this combination, the intensity distributions along both the minor and the major axis of the spot on the screen are calculated and compared with experiments. The gamma of the beam current characteristic is measured as well as calculated. Its dependence on the beam current is small up to beam currents of about 3 mA. Moreover, the cathode loading is calculated as a function of the beam current. Without special means of dynamic correction, satisfactory color reproduction in normal picture material is obtained up to peak currents of 1.5 mA in 110°-25 in tubes. Higher beam currents would be attainable in the absence of a residual deflection error which causes a tilt of the spot near the corners of the screen. The structure of the picture is quite acceptable at a triplet pitch of 1.2 mm without using a lenticular screen.