Abnormal Shot Effect of Ions of Tungstous and Tungstic Oxide

Abstract

Part I. The formation of positive ions of tungstous and tungstic oxide. It was found that when oxygen attacks a hot tungsten filament, positive ions are formed, and a mass spectrograph test has shown these ions to be a mixture of tungstous and tungstic oxide. The positive ion current is proportional to the pressure of the gas, as is the rate of formation of the oxide. The evaporation of an oxide layer following the pumping away of the oxygen, yields an ion current which falls away exponentially with the time. The ratio of the number of charged particles of the oxide, to the number of uncharged particles, is approximately one in twenty thousand, and this ratio does not vary greatly with the temperature of the tungsten filament.