Nothing else than stainless steel makes sense. Just as You wrote, 304 SS is very easy to get and with a mercury makes unbeatable combination. Molybdenum (and possibly tungsten) is more resistant to sputtering (without mercury), but I dont know any nixie tube using a moly cathodes.. Only SS. Aluminum develops an Al2O3 layer (insulation) on air, so it is not much practical to use it. I think it would also sputter massively. Stainless steel is easy to etch, I didnt find anything better.
Dalibor 2014-02-13 21:19 GMT+01:00 Kevin Keith <krfke...@gmail.com>: > What materials are best for the cathode? I have seen references to stainless > steel, aluminum, nickel, titanium, molybdenum, stainless steel, and > tungsten. According to "Cold Cathode Tubes" by JB Dance, "Heavy metal > cathodes undergo sputtering more easily than light metals." I have never > seen this statement anywhere, and no explanation for why this is the case. I > have also heard that Nickel is particularly sensitive to sputtering damage. > It would seem, then, that aluminum, and perhaps magnesium should be the most > sputter resistant (pure) metals. Is this true? Molybdenum and Tungsten foils > seem to be extremely expensive and difficult to find in decent quatities. > Comparitively, 304 Stainless foil is absurdly easy to come by. Household > aluminum foil supposedly has some sort of polymeric layer on top of it which > probably would not be very vacuum compatible. > > Any other suggestions? > > Thanks. > > -- > You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups > "neonixie-l" group. > To unsubscribe from this group and stop receiving emails from it, send an > email to neonixie-l+unsubscr...@googlegroups.com. > To post to this group, send an email to neonixie-l@googlegroups.com. > To view this discussion on the web, visit > https://groups.google.com/d/msgid/neonixie-l/df02fc05-eeb5-4a58-847b-8e8a122497f5%40googlegroups.com. > For more options, visit https://groups.google.com/groups/opt_out. -- Dalibor Farny ---------------------------------------- phone: +420 724 321 571 http://www.daliborfarny.com blog: http://dalibor.farny.cz -- You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups "neonixie-l" group. To unsubscribe from this group and stop receiving emails from it, send an email to neonixie-l+unsubscr...@googlegroups.com. To post to this group, send an email to neonixie-l@googlegroups.com. To view this discussion on the web, visit https://groups.google.com/d/msgid/neonixie-l/CA%2BnkT5qi8odNs7o-TJTpZfoV_ZU1cyLv%3DwcQnsNA0Tp%3Daf7V5Q%40mail.gmail.com. For more options, visit https://groups.google.com/groups/opt_out.
