A 10kV vacuum switch with negative electron affinity of diamond p-i-n electron emitter

Abstract

This paper presents experimental results of a negative electron affinity (NEA) electron emitter using a diamond p-i-n diode which achieves a power transmission efficiency of 73.7 % at 10 kV during RT operations first time. This result proves that a vacuum switches of 100 kV made of diamond can be operated beyond 99.9% efficiency in principle.