9 Nov
2005
9 Nov
'05
10:35 a.m.
On 11/9/2005 at 1:21 PM Paul Koning wrote:
You mean tunnel diodes, a.k.a., Esaki diodes? They
were a passing
fad.
No--that's a different animal and was quite real. The idea of the tunnel
cathode was to use electron tunnelling to form a heaterless cathode. There
was also some talk about p-n junction cathodes at about the same time.
BTW, the last time I saw a tunnel diode in a serious application was not
that long ago--it was used in a ultra-low-power broadband RF sniffer for
use around explosives.
Cheers,
Chuck