Cathode ray

Cathode

Anode

High Voltage
Power Supply

A diagramatic Crookes tube showing the connections for the high

voltage supply. The Maltese cross has no external electrical connection.

1 Description
Cathode rays are so named because they are emitted by
the negative electrode, or cathode, in a vacuum tube, also
called as a cathode ray tube. To release electrons into the
tube, they rst must be detached from the atoms of the
cathode. In the early cold cathode vacuum tubes, called
Crookes tubes, this was done by using a high electrical
potential between the anode and the cathode to ionize the
residual gas in the tube; the ions were accelerated by the
electric eld and released electrons when they collided
with the cathode. Modern vacuum tubes use thermionic
emission, in which the cathode is made of a thin wire
Cathode rays (also called an electron beam or e-beam) lament which is heated by a separate electric current
are streams of electrons observed in vacuum tubes. If passing through it. The increased random heat motion
an evacuated glass tube is equipped with two electrodes of the lament knocks electrons out at the surface of the
and a voltage is applied, the glass opposite of the nega- lament, into the evacuated space of the tube.
tive electrode is observed to glow, due to electrons emit- Since the electrons have a negative charge, they are reted from and travelling perpendicular to the cathode (the pelled by the cathode and attracted to the anode. They
electrode connected to the negative terminal of the volt- travel in straight lines through the empty tube. The voltage supply). They were rst observed in 1869 by Ger- age applied between the electrodes accelerates these low
man physicist Johann Hittorf, and were named in 1876 by mass particles to high velocities. Cathode rays are invisiEugen Goldstein Kathodenstrahlen, or cathode rays.[1][2] ble, but their presence was rst detected in early vacuum
A beam of cathode rays bent into a circle by a magnetic eld generated by a Helmholtz coil. Cathode rays are normally invisible;
in this tube enough residual gas has been left that the gas atoms
glow from uorescence when struck by the fast moving electrons.

Electrons were rst discovered as the constituents of cathode rays. In 1897 British physicist J. J. Thomson showed
the rays were composed of a previously unknown negatively charged particle, which was later named the electron. Cathode ray tubes (CRTs) use a focused beam of
electrons deected by electric or magnetic elds to create
the image in a classic television set.

tubes when they struck the glass wall of the tube, exciting the atoms of the glass and causing them to emit light,
a glow called uorescence. Researchers noticed that objects placed in the tube in front of the cathode could cast a
shadow on the glowing wall, and realized that something
must be travelling in straight lines from the cathode. After the electrons reach the anode, they travel through the
1

HISTORY

anode wire to the power supply and back to the cathode,

so cathode rays carry electric current through the tube.
The current in a beam of cathode rays through a tube can
be controlled by passing it through a metal screen of wires
(a grid) to which a small voltage is applied. The electric
eld of the wires deects some of the electrons, preventing them from reaching the anode. Thus a small voltage
on the grid can be made to control a much larger voltage
on the anode. This is the principle used in vacuum tubes
to amplify electrical signals. High speed beams of cathode rays can also be steered and manipulated by electric
elds created by additional metal plates in the tube to
which voltage is applied, or magnetic elds created by
coils of wire (electromagnets). These are used in cathode
ray tubes, found in televisions and computer monitors,
and in electron microscopes.
Crookes tube
Cathode rays travel from the cathode at the rear of
the tube, striking the glass front, making it glow
green by uorescence. A metal cross in the tube
casts a shadow, demonstrating that the rays travel in
straight lines.

Glow discharge in a low-pressure tube caused by electric current.

Performed by Prof. Oliver Zajkov at the Physics Institute at the
Ss. Cyril and Methodius University of Skopje, Macedonia.

The explanation of these eects was that the high voltage accelerated electrically charged atoms (ions) naturally
present in the air of the tube. At low pressure, there was
enough space between the gas atoms that the ions could
accelerate to high enough speeds that when they struck
another atom they knocked electrons o of it, creating
more positive ions and free electrons in a chain reaction.
The positive ions were all attracted to the cathode. When
they struck it they knocked many electrons out of the
metal. The free electrons were all attracted to the anode.

A magnet creates a horizontal magnetic eld through

the neck of the tube, bending the rays up, so the Geissler tubes had enough air in them that the electrons
could only travel a tiny distance before colliding with
shadow of the cross is higher.
an atom. The electrons in these tubes moved in a slow
When the magnet is reversed, it bends the rays down, diusion process, never gaining much speed, so these
so the shadow is lower. The pink glow is caused by tubes didn't produce cathode rays. Instead they produced
cathode rays striking residual gas atoms in the tube. a colorful glow discharge (as in a modern neon light),
caused when the electrons or ions struck gas atoms, exciting their orbital electrons to higher energy levels. The
electrons released this energy as light. This process is
2 History
called uorescence.
After the 1654 invention of the vacuum pump by Otto
von Guericke, physicists began to experiment with pass2.2 Cathode rays
ing high voltage electricity through rareed air. In 1705,
it was noted that electrostatic generator sparks travel a
By the 1870s, British physicist William Crookes and othlonger distance through low pressure air than through aters were able to evacuate tubes to a lower pressure, bemospheric pressure air.
low 106 atm. These were called Crookes tubes. Faraday had been the rst to notice a dark space just in front
of the cathode, where there was no luminescence. This
2.1 Gas discharge tubes
came to be called the cathode dark space, Faraday
In 1838, Michael Faraday passed a current through a dark space or Crookes dark space. Crookes found that
rareed air lled glass tube and noticed a strange light as he pumped more air out of the tubes, the Faraday dark
arc with its beginning at the cathode (negative elec- space spread down the tube from the cathode toward the
trode) and its end are at the anode (positive electrode).[3] anode, until the tube was totally dark. But at the anode
In 1857, German physicist and glassblower Heinrich (positive) end of the tube, the glass of the tube itself beGeissler sucked even more air out with an improved gan to glow.
pump, to a pressure of around 103 atm and found that,
instead of an arc, a glow lled the tube. The voltage
applied between the two electrodes of the tubes, generated by an induction coil, was anywhere between a few
kilovolts and 100 kV. These were called Geissler tubes,
similar to todays neon signs.

What was happening was that as more air was pumped

from the tube, the electrons could travel farther, on average, before they struck a gas atom. By the time the tube
was dark, most of the electrons could travel in straight
lines from the cathode to the anode end of the tube without a collision. With no obstructions, these low mass par-

2.4

Vacuum tubes

3
The debate was resolved in 1897 when J. J. Thomson
measured the mass of cathode rays, showing they were
made of particles, but were around 1800 times lighter
than the lightest atom, hydrogen. Therefore, they were
not atoms, but a new particle, the rst subatomic particle
to be discovered, which he originally called "corpuscle"
but was later named electron, after particles postulated by
George Johnstone Stoney in 1874. He also showed they
were identical with particles given o by photoelectric
and radioactive materials.[4] It was quickly recognized
that they are the particles that carry electric currents in
metal wires, and carry the negative electric charge of the
atom.
Thomson was given the 1906 Nobel prize for physics for
this work. Philipp Lenard also contributed a great deal to
cathode ray theory, winning the Nobel prize for physics in
1905 for his research on cathode rays and their properties.

A Crookes tube. The cathode rays travel in straight lines from

the cathode (left) and strike the right wall of the tube, making it
glow by uorescence.

2.4 Vacuum tubes

mine what cathode rays were. There were two theories.

Crookes and Arthur Schuster believed they were particles
of radiant matter, that is, electrically charged atoms.
German scientists Eilhard Wiedemann, Heinrich Hertz
and Goldstein believed they were aether waves, some
new form of electromagnetic radiation, and were separate
from what carried the electric current through the tube.

Cathode rays are now usually called electron beams. The

technology of manipulating electron beams pioneered in
these early tubes was applied practically in the design of
vacuum tubes, particularly in the invention of the cathode ray tube by Ferdinand Braun in 1897 and is today
employed in sophisticated devices such as electron microscopes, electron beam lithography and particle accel-

The gas ionization (or cold cathode) method of producing cathode rays used in Crookes tubes was unreliable,
because it depended on the pressure of the residual air in
ticles were accelerated to high velocities by the voltage the tube. Over time, the air was adsorbed by the walls of
between the electrodes.These were the cathode rays.
the tube, and it stopped working.
When they reached the anode end of the tube, they were A more reliable and controllable method of producing
traveling so fast that, although they were attracted to it, cathode rays was investigated by Hittorf and Goldstein,
they often ew past the anode and struck the back wall and rediscovered by Thomas Edison in 1880. A cathof the tube. When they struck atoms in the glass wall, ode made of a wire lament heated red hot by a separate
they excited their orbital electrons to higher energy levels, current passing through it would release electrons into
causing them to uoresce. Later researchers painted the the tube by a process called thermionic emission. The
inside back wall with uorescent chemicals such as zinc rst true electronic vacuum tubes, invented in 1904, used
sulde, to make the glow more visible.
this hot cathode technique, and they superseded Crookes
Cathode rays themselves are invisible, but this acciden- tubes. These tubes didn't need gas in them to work, so
9
tal uorescence allowed researchers to notice that objects they were evacuated to a lower pressure, around 10 atm
4
in the tube in front of the cathode, such as the anode, (10 Pa). The ionization method of creating cathode
cast sharp-edged shadows on the glowing back wall. In rays used in Crookes tubes is today only used in a few
1869, German physicist Johann Hittorf was rst to real- specialized gas discharge tubes such as krytrons.
ize that something must be traveling in straight lines from Lee De Forest in 1906 found that a small voltage on
the cathode to cast the shadows. Eugen Goldstein named a grid of metal wires could control a much larger curthem cathode rays.
rent in a beam of cathode rays passing through a vacuum
tube. His invention, called the triode, was the rst device
that could amplify electric signals, and founded the eld
of electronics. Vacuum tubes made radio and television
2.3 Discovery of the electron
broadcasting possible, as well as radar, talking movies,
audio
recording, and long distance telephone service, and
At this time, atoms were the smallest particles known,
were
the
foundation of consumer electronic devices until
and were believed to be indivisible. What carried electhe
1960s
when the transistor brought the era of vacuum
tric currents was a mystery. During the last quarter of
tubes
to
a
close.
the 19th century many experiments were done to deter-

5 References

erators.

Properties of cathode rays

Like a wave, cathode rays travel in straight lines, and

produce a shadow when obstructed by objects. Ernest
Rutherford demonstrated that rays could pass through
thin metal foils, behavior expected of a particle. These
conicting properties caused disruptions when trying to
classify it as a wave or particle. Crookes insisted it was
a particle, while Hertz maintained it was a wave. The
debate was resolved when an electric eld was used to
deect the rays by J. J. Thomson. This was evidence that
the beams were composed of particles because scientists
knew it was impossible to deect electromagnetic waves
with an electric eld. These can also create mechanical
eects, uorescence, etc.
Louis de Broglie later (1924) showed in his doctoral dissertation that electrons are in fact much like photons in
the respect that they act both as waves and as particles
in a dual manner as Einstein had shown earlier for light.
The wave-like behaviour of cathode rays was later directly demonstrated using a crystal lattice by Davisson
and Germer in 1927.

EXTERNAL LINKS

See also
(alpha) particles
(beta) particles
Electron beam processing
Electron microscope
Electron beam melting
Electron beam welding
Electron gun
Electron irradiation
Ionizing radiation
Particle accelerator
Rays:
(gamma) rays
n (neutron) rays
(delta) rays
(epsilon) rays
Sterilisation (microbiology)
Electron beam technology
phosphorescent screen

[1] E. Goldstein (May 4, 1876) Vorluge Mittheilungen

ber elektrische Entladungen in verdnnten Gasen (Preliminary communications on electric discharges in rareed gases), Monatsberichte der Kniglich Preussischen
Akademie der Wissenschaften zu Berlin (Monthly Reports
of the Royal Prussian Academy of Science in Berlin), 279295. From page 286: "13. Das durch die Kathodenstrahlen in der Wand hervorgerufene Phosphorescenzlicht
ist hchst selten von gleichfrmiger Intensitt auf der von
ihm bedeckten Flche, und zeigt oft sehr barocke Muster."
(13. The phosphorescent light thats produced in the wall
by the cathode rays is very rarely of uniform intensity on
the surface that it covers, and [it] often shows very baroque
patterns.)
[2] Joseph F. Keithley The story of electrical and magnetic
measurements: from 500 B.C. to the 1940s John Wiley
and Sons, 1999 ISBN 0-7803-1193-0, page 205
[3] Michael Faraday (1838) VIII. Experimental researches
in electricity. Thirteenth series., Philosophical Transactions of the Royal Society of London, 128 : 125-168.
[4] Thomson, J. J. (August 1901). On bodies smaller than
atoms. The Popular Science Monthly (Bonnier Corp.):
323335. Retrieved 2009-06-21.

5. General Chemistry (structure and properties of matter)

by Aruna Bandara (2010)

6 External links
The Cathode Ray Tube site
Crookes tube with maltese cross operating

6.1 Animations and Simulations

The simulation show electrons in crossed elds made
by BIGS

Text and image sources, contributors, and licenses

7.1

Text

Cathode ray Source: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cathode_ray?oldid=725751415 Contributors: The Anome, SimonP, DavidLevinson,

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