Krytron
The Krytron is a gas-filled electron tube, which was used as a switching tube in the middle of the 20th century. Due to the special construction, very short switching times and high currents can be switched.
This tube development dates back to the late 1940s. Krytrons are a further development of triggerable switching spark gaps . Like these, they have a trigger electrode between the cathode and anode as well as an auxiliary electrode that maintains a constant discharge near the cathode and thus causes pre-ionization. Some of them additionally or alternatively to the auxiliary electrode containing a weak beta emitter , mostly with the nickel - isotope Ni-63, the pre-ionized gas filling.
Krytrons have cold cathodes, they differ from the cold cathode thyratron (relay tube ) by their shorter switching times and much higher currents, which do not cause a glow discharge , as they do with them , but a spark discharge .
Krytrons were used in radar devices , to control flash lamps, to ignite stronger switching spark gaps , to ignite conventional explosives and atomic bombs with an exploding wire, and for other applications that required steep current pulses and high voltages . They have been completely replaced by semiconductor switches in these applications.
Krytrons with certain performance data are subject to EU export regulations.
The vacuum version of a crytron is the Sprytron . Another high-performance triggerable switch is the thyratron .
Trivia
A Krytron was used as MacGuffin in the thriller Frantic .
Individual evidence
- ↑ http://www.bafa.de/SharedDocs/Downloads/DE/Aussenwirtschaft/afk_gueterlisten_dual_use_anhang_1_ategorie_3.pdf