Strong electron emissions induced and extracted by pyroelectric crystals

A high voltage pulse generated by changing the temperature of a pyroelectric crystal was used to induce strong electron emissions from a ferroelectric cathode. The effects of the extracting voltage provided by an external power source or by another pyroelectric crystal on the electron emission property were investigated. As for a normal ferroelectric cathode, both the electron emission current and the total emitted electrons were found to increase with the increasing extracting voltage. However, the final voltage on the cathode after electron emission was also found to depend on the extracting voltage at the anode. The electron emission was also found to depend not only on the pulse generation and the ferroelectric cathode as reported previously, but also on the capacitance of the anode. These phenomena were explained by a surface-plasma-assisted electron emission mechanism.