Modulated field emission from a cold cathode integrated in a photonic crystal diode for microwave vacuum electronics

The authors proposed a photonic-crystal diode resonator capable of applying both DC-bias field and RF field at the same time, that enables the electron flow continuously to the anode regardless of the RF phase and amplitude as long as the modulation depth, the ratio of maximum RF voltage amplitude to DC-bias, is less than one. The proposed scheme employs a novel diode resonator consisting of two metal plates (anode and cathode) insulated by two dimensional arrays of periodic dielectric rods as spacers around a defect as a photonic band gap (PBG) cavity.Modulated emission from a cold cathode can be realized for practical application to RF vacuum electronics without concern of backward drifting of electrons.