Abstract:
With the development of small high-vacuum devices such as gyroscopes, atomic clocks, cold atomic inertial sensors, and small vacuum electronic components that have strict requirements for low-voltage and non-magnetic working environments, traditional solutions such as vacuum packaging or getter passive vacuum maintenance technology can provide a certain vacuum level for these vacuum electronic devices, but there are still problems such as insufficient vacuum level and high temperature activation, it is generally necessary to incorporate an independent small or micro vacuum pump to achieve vacuum generation and vacuum maintenance for the vacuum chamber system. In this paper, a low-voltage non-magnetic ion pump based on pyroelectric principle is designed, and lithium tantalate (LiTaO
3) crystals of different sizes are used as the voltage and electron source to generate the acceleration voltage, suppression voltage and initial emission electrons for the ion pump, and the temperature change of the crystal is controlled by controlling the heating and cooling time, so as to realize the control of the voltage and electronic energy provided by the crystal. In this work, the basic principle verification, ion pump structure design, COMSOL electronic trajectory simulation, pumping performance experimental research and other work were carried out, and the theoretical feasibility of the designed ion pump was verified. The ion pump prototype was built, and its pumping characteristics were verified through experiments. The experimental results showed that the designed ion pump has good pumping performance in a vacuum environment with a pressure of 10
-3 Pa. It can be used as an auxiliary pump to effectively improve the pumping effect of the molecular pump in a vacuum environment with a pressure of 10
-6 Pa. This work provides a feasible solution for vacuum generation and maintenance of small vacuum systems in low-voltage and non-magnetic environments.