Scribd
Upload
3 views

Ionization Potential

Chapter

Uploaded by

Shakir Khattak
Copyright
© © All Rights Reserved
We take content rights seriously. If you suspect this is your content, claim it here.
Available Formats
Download as PDF, TXT or read online on Scribd
3 views

Ionization Potential

Chapter

Uploaded by

Shakir Khattak
Copyright
© © All Rights Reserved
We take content rights seriously. If you suspect this is your content, claim it here.
Available Formats
Download as PDF, TXT or read online on Scribd
You are on page 1/ 6

IONIZATION POTENTIAL OF MERCURY

Ionization potential of mercury apparatus is designed to


determine the ionization of mercury. A micro-amp meter,
voltmeter heater supply and a continuously variable
power supply is provided in the apparatus

THEORY:
Thermionic emission
Metals at room temperature have a lot of electrons inside
them which can move around in response to an applied
electromagnetic field. However under normal conditions
the negative charges on all these electrons are cancelled
out by the positive charges on the atoms of the metal.

If we heat up the metal, however, we give the electrons


more kinetic energy. This may mean that some have so
much energy that they can ‘leap out’ of the piece of
metal into its surroundings. However when they do this
the metal, having lost an electron, now has a positive
charge. The result is an electrostatic attraction between
the (negatively charged) electrons that have leapt out of
the metal and the (positively charged) metal they have
left. This tends to pull them back.

The result of the above is to produce what is called a


“space charge effect”. The hot metal becomes
surrounded by a “cloud” of electrons, that have jumped
out of the metal, but are then drawn back by the
attraction between the electron and the metal. Taken
overall, the system is still electrically neutral since we
have the negative electrons and the positive metal. Add
their charges and we still can get zero. It is just that some
of the negative charge is ‘displaced’ from the metal to its
surrounding. In this case, if we heat one of the metal
pieces of our diode valve it becomes surrounded by this
space charge.

!
The result is illustrated in the above diagram. When we
heat up the metal we get a cloud of electrons that are
‘boiling’ off the metal surface and then (usually!) falling
back again.

This property of ‘boiling off’ electrons is called


‘Thermionic Emission’ as the emission of electrons is
produced by the heat.

DIODE VALVES:
The Thermionic Diode basically consists of two parts or
‘Electrodes’, surrounded by an envelope which allows
them to operate in a vacuum.
Here what we have done is heat the cathode by applying
a voltage between the two cathode heater leads, H1 and
H2. We have also connected the cathode and anode
together via a resistor. If we do this we get a surprising
result. We find that the anode develops a negative
potential with respect to the cathode, and some current
will flow through the resistor. Note that in this case the
positive and negative signs shown on the above diagram
don’t represent voltages we have applied from an
external source. They indicate what the valve generates!

Unless we know what is happening inside the diode this


result is puzzling as we seem to have created electrical
power from nowhere and perhaps violated the law of
energy conservation! Is this the solution to our global
energy crisis and we can give up fossil fuels?... Afraid
not. What is happening is that when we heat the cathode
we create a cloud of electrons in the vacuum near the
surface of the cathode. Most of these electrons will stay
near the cathode. But a few will have energy to leap far
enough from the cathode to be able to cross the vacuum
and strike the anode.

Since the anode isn’t heated, it will grab any electrons


that hit it, and they won’t have enough kinetic energy to
escape it again. As a result a number of electrons end up
sitting on the anode that have crossed the vacuum to
reach it.

If we don’t connect the anode to anything, then as some


electrons gather on the anode they give it a negative
charge. This would tend to produce a negative potential,
which then tends to repel any other electrons that
approach the anode. Hence unless we give the arriving
electrons some way to escape, they build up until they
repel any further borders! However if we connect the
anode back to the cathode via an external resistor, the
arrivals can flow back ‘home’ to the cathode via the path
through the resistor. As they do this, the anode potential
relative to the cathode becomes less negative and some
more electrons will have enough energy to cross the
vacuum gap, thus continuing the flow. The broken blue
lines with arrowheads in the above diagram show the
direction of the electron flow. However note that for daft
historical reasons we define ‘conventional’ current to be
in the opposite direction to the actual electron flow. Thus
in conventional terms we’d say a current flows through
the resistor from C to A (positive to negative potential).

The energy which we see dissipating as the electrons


pass through the resistor is part of the kinetic energy
which they removed from the cathode when they were
flung out of it by the thermal motions inside the cathode.
Hence the energy is drawn from the heat we supplied to
the cathode. Alas, no perpetual motion or energy crisis
solution, since we have to supply energy to the cathode
to drive this process.

The amount of current we’d see will depend on various


factors. These include the temperature of the cathode, its
surface area, the distance to the anode, etc. One of the
most important of these factors is the details of the
surface of the cathode. Most practical valves have
cathodes which are treated or coated to enhance their
ability to release electrons when heated. Despite this,
with most practical valves, the actual current level we get
if we carry out the above experiment tends to be very
small. This is quite deliberate as in most applications we
want the diode to have very low current ‘leakage’ when
the potential difference between anode and cathode is
around zero volts. The relation between anode current Ia
and anode voltage Va is given by Child-Longmuir
formula
Ia=A (Va)3/2 Where A is a constant.
SCHEMATIC DIAGRAM OF CIRCUIT:

PROCEDURE:

1- Insert the mercury diode tube (816-83) in the tube


holder provided on the apparatus and connect the lead on
the top of the tube.

2- Plug the apparatus on the main supply 220 VAC and


let the tube warm up for one minute.

3- Increase the anode voltage in regular steps and note


corresponding value of anode current till it starts to
deviate from straight line. And take readings.
Observation Va Ia Log Va Log Ia
1
2
3
4
5
6
7
8
9
10
11
12
13
14
15

4- Plot a graph between log of anode voltage (log Va) on


x-axis and log of anode current (log Ia) on y-axis.

5- Locate the position of Ia and corresponding Va where


graph deviates from straight line. This is ionization
potential of mercury.

You might also like