[time-nuts] HP 5061B Beam Tubes

Ralph Devoe rgdevoe at gmail.com
Tue Sep 24 23:59:19 UTC 2013


        I don't think you need very high temperatures to move alkali atoms
like Cs, Rb, or Na around in a vapor cell. The trick is to have one part of
the cell much colder than the rest. The Cs will automatically go the
coldest spot. The temperature just sets the rate at which it moves. I
remember an experiment with Na vapor (which is less volatile than Cs) in a
glass cell in which the heat of one's hand was sufficient to drive all the
Na into a cold finger, which was sitting in a glass of ice water. It took
about a minute to move.
       I hope I'm not leading you astray, but perhaps heating a beam tube
to, maybe 140 F, and putting a thermoelectric cooler on the right spot,
would clean the tube up. Of course, once the cold spot warmed up, it would
spread around again.



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