Synthesis and properties of CeB6 thermionic cathode with {001} fiber texture by reactive spark plasma sintering method

In this paper, a study on quick spark plasma sintering (SPS) method for synthesizing the polycrystalline CeB<;sub>6<;/sub> bulk is presented. CeB<;sub>6<;/sub> is the material of choice for high current density cathode. However, in fact, because of the long sintering time and high temperature, the traditional hot pressure sintering preparation of polycrystalline CeB<;sub>6<;/sub> bulk causes coarse grains and low density which decrease the emission property. The pulsed voltage method was used to test the electron emission of the CeB₆. The pulse thermionic emission density was measured with increasing voltages up to 1000 V at various cathode temperatures from 1500 K to 1863 K, at pressure of 2x10^-4 Pa, a pulse width of 20 μs and repetition frequency of 120 Hz.