Low-pressure glow discharge property of C12A7 electride

Abstract

A significant improvement on discharge charcteristics such as cathode fall voltage or firing voltage was observed for trial manufacture cold cathode lamps that comprise 12CaO∙7Al2O3 crystals with F+ center (so-called C12A7 electride) as cathode material. The observed cathode fall voltage under Argon or Xenon discharge gas was smaller by 50-60 volts than those observed for Mo cathode lamp simultaneously prepared for the comparison. The result may be attributed to F+ center inherent to C12A7 electride, that gives small work function of 0.6-2.1 eV to the present material.