Subtlety of the Discharge Device

It is not very hard to see for the minds of the experts in the field of electronics that the key critical component in this device is the discharge tube. Tesla spent enormous amount of time to design many different types of the spark gaps including the types where many spark gaps are placed in series and some times with a blow fan on it to blow off the continuous stream of the spark(arching) to make the switching activity more efficient. This can also be seen from Moray's case in his device when he hid his tube out of the sight after demonstrating his device to the public and also many of his attempts to make different kinds of tubes to suit the purpose. The fundamental function of the discharge tube is to make the charges to spread out from the inner (smaller) electrode toward the acceptor electrode without making the continuous stream of the electrical current. This process can be made faster if the discharge time is succinct. Still the fundamental physical limit is the passage time of the flight of the electrons toward the outer electrode. Also in the choice of the metallic component of the electrode, it would be better to have a metal that has highest work function potential perhaps like tungsten. On the other hand this type of metal can have uncontrollable discharge characteristics. In other words, we want a device that breaks down without delay at exactly the same voltage every time. Any kind of jitter in this process means the less efficient delivery of energy to the tank circuit. After many thoughts, I came to the conclusion that the external triggering method is better for the purpose of controlling the discharging frequency and the exact timing. In general, depending on the radiation environment surrounding the discharge tube, the triggering timing changes drastically. In fact, presence of ultra violet light, beta decay source drastically enhance the discharge characteristic of the tubes. In fact, the Geiger counter head has already been utilizing this effect. High voltage is constantly applied in between the two electrodes inside the head and as soon as a radiation enters the chamber, it triggers the avalanche discharge and this is counted as one radiation. Of course if there are more than one beta decay at the same time, this counter will not accurately count both of the decays. But it can be made pretty much close to the actual numbers. In Hubbard case, I mentioned that he used radium coated spark gap. The effect of this is to make it easy to control the trigger timing because by coating the radioactive material like radium at the electrode, he could make the gap distance wider and thereby make the switching off effect more abrupt, in such a way that he didn't have to use a fan to blow off the continuous conduction through the plasmatized air like in the case of Tesla.