Why can't we find an alternative to vacuum for vacuum tubes and CRTs? Obviously, stuff like lead or even tinfoil blocks beta radiation fairly easily so that can't be used. But can't science come up with some space filling material that doesn't get in the

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File: 1438041343230.jpg (499.53 KB, 2468x1200, 617:300, Elektronenroehren-auswahl.jpg)

07/27/15 (Mon) 23:55:43 No.2847

Why can't we find an alternative to vacuum for vacuum tubes and CRTs? Obviously, stuff like lead or even tinfoil blocks beta radiation fairly easily so that can't be used. But can't science come up with some space filling material that doesn't get in the way of electrons? I'm guessing that even helium gas still interacts with electrons and I'm guessing that using hydrogen gas might be a bad idea.

One possible idea I have is to shoot virtual electron "holes" through a metal solid but I have no idea of how that works physically.

07/27/15 (Mon) 23:59:58 No.2848

I also have no idea how one would create an electron hole gun but I think that'd be basically the reverse of an electron gun? After all, every electron fired off by an electron gun implies an opposite absent hole left behind.

07/28/15 (Tue) 00:06:08 No.2849

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In a normal vacuum tube electrons get emitted out into the vacuum off the cathode.

If the vacuum is filled with a conductive material and what would be a cathode in a normal vacuum tube is a doped semiconductor (that has a bunch of holes in it) can things be arranged so that holes fire off and out through to the other side?