Sikora Jarosław, Kania Bartosz, Mroczka Janusz
Department of Automatics and Metrology, Lublin University of Technology, 20-618 Lublin, Poland.
Department of Electronic and Photonic Metrology, Wroclaw University of Science and Technology, 50-370 Wroclaw, Poland.
Sensors (Basel). 2021 Apr 20;21(8):2878. doi: 10.3390/s21082878.
Thermionic emission sources are key components of electron impact gas ion sources used in measuring instruments, such as mass spectrometers, ionization gauges, and apparatus for ionization cross-section measurements. The repeatability of the measurements taken with such instruments depends on the stability of the ion current, which is a function, among other things, of the electron beam current and electron accelerating voltage. In this paper, a laboratory thermionic electron beam current and accelerating voltage controller is presented, based on digital algorithm implementation. The average value of the percentage standard deviation of the emission current is 0.021%, and the maximum electron accelerating voltage change versus the emission current is smaller than 0.011% in the full operating range of the emission current. Its application as a trap current or emission current-regulated ion source power supply could be useful in many measuring instruments, such as in microelectromechanical system (MEMS) mass spectrometers as universal gas sensors, where a stable emission current and electron energy are needed.
热电子发射源是用于测量仪器（如质谱仪、电离规和电离截面测量装置）的电子碰撞气体离子源的关键部件。使用此类仪器进行测量的重复性取决于离子电流的稳定性，而离子电流稳定性除其他因素外，还与电子束电流和电子加速电压有关。本文基于数字算法实现，介绍了一种实验室热电子束电流和加速电压控制器。发射电流百分比标准偏差的平均值为0.021%，在发射电流的整个工作范围内，电子加速电压相对于发射电流的最大变化小于0.011%。它作为陷阱电流或发射电流调节的离子源电源，可应用于许多测量仪器，如作为通用气体传感器的微机电系统（MEMS）质谱仪，这类仪器需要稳定的发射电流和电子能量。
