抄録
A thermionic energy converter is one of the direct electricity generations. The space charge effect, which limits the thermal emission, is relaxed by enclosing cesium in the converter. In generally, the converter is operated at high emitter temperature because of producing cesium ion by contact thermal ionization. The high operating temperature causes a short emitter’s life that becomes problem for the practical use. The converter is irradiated with the resonance light so that cesium ion is produced by photo-ionization. It is seen that the output by the resonance light irradiation is much larger than that by the visible. A lot of cesium ions can be produced in the space between the electrodes since the most resonance light is absorbed by cesium atom. The maximum value of the short circuit current density is about 1kA/m2. It is found that the resonance light irradiation is one of the effective methods for the practical application.
