Performance comparison between sintered tungsten dispenser cathodes and nano-composite scandate dispenser cathodes

In recent years an exciting progress has been made in developing scandate cathodes that have excellent emission properties at a lower operating temperature comparing to the traditional sintered tungsten dispenser cathodes, and consequently a significantly longer life. The initial results look very promising for the development of millimeter wave and THz sources. In order to compare performance of these novel cathodes with performance of the traditional sintered tungsten dispenser cathodes when a same geometry is used for the both technologies a group of test is being performed at Semicon Associates and University of California Davis and results will be presented.