Durability experiment on anti-electron-bombardment of RE2O3-Mo secondary emission material

A durability test to determine anti-bombardment sensitivity of multi-RE2 O3-Mo secondary emission material was carried out and the variation of maximum secondary emission coefficient (δmax) was monitored at regular intervals. After the experiment, the cathode was analyzed with SEM, EDS and XRD techniques. The results show that δmax of multi-RE2O3-Mo cermets cathode heated to 1 100 ℃ under electron bombardment of 300 W/cm2 reaches the peak of 3.35 at 200 h. After 500 h of bombardment, the maximum secondary-electron-yield curve stabilizes. The δmax value of the cathode remains at about 2.5 after 1 000 h and represents a good anti-bombardment property. The high δmax value of the cathode is related with formation of an enriched Y2 O3 layer on the surface under high temperature and with the amount of La2 O3 particles in the shape of nanometer distributed on the surface. Under the experimental conditions, the drop of δmax value may be caused by the reduction of La2 O3 content and the porous layer resulted from evaporation of MoO2, which is formed when Mo at the surface is oxidized.

Durability experiment on anti-electron-bombardment of RE2O3-Mo secondary emission material