Determination of the electron specific charge by the magnetron method

Vicol Anca-Diana 1221E 1. Work purpose The work purpose is to determine the ratio between the absolute value of the electron charge and its mass e!m using a device called magnetron" #n this device the tra$ectories of the electrons emitted by a heated filament are modified by an e%ternally applied magnetic field" 2. Theory The method to determine the electron specific charge e!m is based on the study of the electron movement in electric and magnetic fields" The force acting upon a particle of charge & ' ( e under these fields is called )orent* force and is given by the formula+

where v is the electron velocity E is the electric field intensity and , is the magnetic field induction" According to -ewton.s second law+ the e&uation of the electron movement is of the form+ To determine the electron specific charge we will use the magnetron method" The magnetron is a cylindrically symmetric vacuum diode placed inside a concentric solenoidal coil" The cathode / formed by a wire that also serves as filament is coa%ial with the cylindrical anode A and with the coil 0 so that the magnetic field induction vector , r is parallel with the magnetron symmetry a%is" 1hen , ' 2 the electrons emitted by the cathode through thermo electronic emission will move radially towards the anode under the influence of the electric field E produced by the bias 3 applied to the tube" 1hen , 4 2 the electrons suffer a deviation orthogonal to v due to the magnetic field" Their tra$ectories starting from the cathode and ending on the anode curve themselves " #f the magnetic field becomes great enough then it is possible that the electrons can never reach the anode" This happens when their tra$ectories become circular with the radius r ' 5!2" #n this situation the electrons form a space charge region around the cathode screening it and the anodic current practically drops to *ero" 1e will try to find out a relation that will give us the e%pression of the electron specific charge e!m starting from this e%perimental situation"

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Working Procedure The set-up is entirely assembled on a work bed and is feeded from the network through a d"c" rectifier" ,y turning on the switches 61 and 62 both circuits will have a voltage such that with the potentiometer 51 we can vary the voltage 3 applied to the tube and with the potentiometer 52 we can vary the current # that flows through the solenoid" The measurement of the anodic current i in order to obtain the value # 2 is made by keeping the bias 3 constant" The variation steps for the current # are chosen such that the readings on the milliampere scale could be made with the highest possible accuracy 7i"e" 28 mA9"The measurements must be performed for three different values of the bias 31 :32 :3; conveniently chosen" The results will be written down in Table 1" 4. Experimental data processing <or the three different values of the voltage 31 32 3; one plots the graphs Three distinct values will be obtained in this way for #2 corresponding to the three values of the bias 3 for which e!m is to be computed " The average of the three obtained values e!m is considered to be the closest result to the real value"

2 mA ;2 V =2 V ?8 V i7div9 i7mA9 i7div9 i7mA9 i7div9 i7mA9 > 2"= 12 2"@ ;2 1"8

E%perimental Data 8 mA 12 mA 18 mA 22 mA 28 mA ;2 mA ;8 mA =2 mA =8 mA > 2"= 12 2"@ ;2 1"8 > 2"= 12 2"@ ;2 1"8 > 2"= 12 2"@ ;2 1"8 ? 2";8 11 2"88 2A 1"=8 @ 2";2 12 2"8 2? 1";8 8 2"28 A 2"=8 2= 1"22 = 2"22 > 2"= 21 1"28 = 2"22 ? 2";8 1A 2"A8 ; 2"18 @ 2"; 1? 2">8