Study of Metrological Characteristics of Cylindrical Triode-type Ionization Gauge with a Carbon Nanotube Cathode

A carbon nanotube field emission cathode was prepared by screen printing method,and it was used as the electron source of the cylindrical triode-type ionization gauge.The metrological characteristics of the developed ionization gauge in air atmosphere were investigated.It is shown that the ion current and experimental gas pressure of the developed ionization gauge shows good linearity in the range of 10^-7~10^-4Pa,and the lower limit of measurement of this gauge is two orders of magnitude lower than that of the conventional cylindrical triode-type hot cathode ionization gauge.In addition,the power consumption of the gauge is only 8.5 mW and the sensitivity is about 0.047 Pa^-1.The extremely low power consumption of the currently developed ionization gauge makes it have obvious advantages in space applications.