Who invented the thyratron?

The invention of the thyratron is credited to Langmuir (1918), while the development of the hydrogen thyratron has been credited to Germeshausen (1948), although as early as 1928, Hull had described the design and operation of rare gas filled thyratrons.

What is a thyratron used for?

A thyratron is a type of gas-filled tube used as a high-power electrical switch and controlled rectifier. Thyratrons can handle much greater currents than similar hard-vacuum tubes. Electron multiplication occurs when the gas becomes ionized, producing a phenomenon known as Townsend discharge.

Why mercury is preferred in thyratron?

The ionized mercury provides a highly conductive path between the filament and the plate, allowing a large (1.5 amp) current to flow. Once the mercury ionizes, the grid no longer has control over the tube and the thyratron remains on until the voltage between the filament and plate drops to zero.

What is thyratron in Linac?

Thyratrons are gas filled electron tubes which are used as high voltage switches in medical linear accelerators. A thyratron fires when a pulse of high voltage reaches a preset level. It then provides a path for discharging a pulse from the pulse forming network to the pulse transformer.

How does a Thyratron work?

A thyratron is one kind of tube filled with gas and it is used like a controlled rectifier as well as a high power electrical switch. These tubes handle high currents like hard vacuum tubes. Whenever the gas within the tube becomes ionized then multiplication of electron can take place.

How does a thyratron work?

Why we use mercury in ionisation potential experiment?

Mercury is used because of its high vapor pressure and low ionization potential. Photons emitted by ionized mercury atoms can be absorbed by nearby nonionized atoms and either reradiated or the atom is deexcited nonradiatively, too high mercury pressure therefore causes losses of light.

What gas is in a vacuum tube?

Some special-purpose tubes are constructed with particular gases in the envelope. For instance, voltage-regulator tubes contain various inert gases such as argon, helium or neon, which will ionize at predictable voltages. The thyratron is a special-purpose tube filled with low-pressure gas or mercury vapor.

Why are linacs pulsed?

Particles must be injected in pulsed bunches occurring in phase with the RF fields. In heavy-ion LINACS, the projectile velocity increases with passage through each gap, so that path lengths between gaps must also increase systematically to maintain the proper phase relationship.

How do you test thyratron?

For the test, S2 is placed in the d.c. position and the d.c. voltage developed across C1 is fed, via S1-4 to the anode of the thyratron tube to be tested. (S1-4 is closed for this test.) The voltmeter is placed in the position indicated by the dotted lines from the anode of the tube, through R37 and R16.

What kind of circuit is a thyratron used for?

What kind of gas can be used in a thyratron?

Thyratrons can handle much greater currents than similar hard-vacuum tubes. Electron multiplication occurs when the gas becomes ionized, producing a phenomenon known as Townsend discharge. Gases used include mercury vapor, xenon, neon, and (in special high-voltage applications or applications requiring very short switching times) hydrogen.

Are there any variations of the thyratron tube?

Variations of the thyratron idea are the krytron, the sprytron, the ignitron, and the triggered spark gap, all still used today in special applications, such as nuclear weapons (krytron) and AC/DC-AC power transmission (ignitron). The 885 is a small thyratron tube, using argon gas.

How long does it take for thyratron to recover?

This recovery process takes 25 to 75 μ s and limits thyratron repetition rates to a few k Hz .