THERMIONIC EMISSION

also called the Edison Effect, discharge of electrons from heated materials, widely used as a source of electrons in conventional electron tubes (e.g., television picture tubes) in the fields of electronics and communications. The phenomenon was first observed (1883) by Thomas A. Edison as a passage of electricity from a filament to a plate of metal inside an incandescent lamp. The heated sources of electrons are generally metals (for example, tungsten), metals sparsely contaminated with another metal (tungsten impregnated with a barium compound), or compounds that behave like metals or semiconductors. The emitting material is often in the form of a hairpin-shaped filament that is heated directly as part of an electric circuit or in the form of a cylinder that is heated indirectly by a separate filament running along its axis. In thermionic emission, the heat supplies some electrons with at least the minimal energy required to overcome the attractive force holding them in the structure of the metal. This minimal energy, called the work function, is characteristic of the emitting material and the state of contamination of its surface. At high temperatures, some metals emit positive ions, too; that is, some of their surface atoms devoid of at least one electron are evaporated into the surrounding space. See also field emission.