"The candle that burns twice as bright, burns half as long..."
I've heard, but have not verified myself, that 5071A high-performance tubes will last at least 7 years of continuous use and that 5071A standard-performance tubes can last around 20 years. For high-perf tubes end-of-life is usually due to running out of cesium. For standard-tubes the lifetime may be more limited by degradation of the electron multiplier than running out of cesium. I don't have specific information on oven temperatures, beam flux, ion velocity, EM gain, etc. so don't draw too many conclusions from the 7 vs. 20 number. If someone has more complete information that would be helpful. The question about tube life for those of us with surplus cesium standards is not simple -- over the decades there have been several cesium tube manufacturers (hp/Agilent, FTS/Datum, FEI) each with several product generations or models. Thanks, /tvb _______________________________________________ time-nuts mailing list -- [email protected] To unsubscribe, go to https://www.febo.com/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/time-nuts and follow the instructions there.
