Structural Modification of La₂O₃-TiO₂-B Mixture after Mechanical Activation

Accelerators require development of new and more powerful installations, generating the streams of the charged particles, affecting the development of machine building industry, energy power industry and other fields of science and technology. Great attention is paid not only to the modernization of the installations, in whole, but also to their individual elements. Cathode is the most important element of the installations, generating the stream of charged particles. Using lanthanum hexaboride as a cathode material allows getting maximum efficiency of cathode assembly due to the thermodynamic and emission properties of lanthanum hexaboride. This paper studies the properties changes of lanthanum oxide mixture, titanium and boron oxides under the influence of mechanical activation to obtain the final product, based on lanthanum hexaboride and titanium diboride, corresponding to the high performance properties of the emitter. The study resulted in determination of time and frequency of mechanical activation to obtain the particles with the smallest average size of 6.3 microns for the mixture of lanthanum oxide, titanium and boron oxides powders.