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The positive ions were accelerated by the electric field toward the cathode, and when they collided with it they knocked electrons out of its surface; these were the cathode rays. Modern vacuum tubes use thermionic emission , in which the cathode is made of a thin wire filament which is heated by a separate electric current passing through it.
The cathode-ray tube by which J. J. Thomson demonstrated that cathode rays could be deflected by a magnetic field, and that their negative charge was not a separate phenomenon While supporters of the aetherial theory accepted the possibility that negatively charged particles are produced in Crookes tubes , [ citation needed ] they believed that ...
Diagram of a copper cathode in a galvanic cell (e.g., a battery). Positively charged cations move towards the cathode allowing a positive current i to flow out of the cathode. A cathode is the electrode from which a conventional current leaves a polarized electrical device such as a lead-acid battery.
In 1897, J. J. Thomson succeeded in measuring the mass-to-charge ratio of cathode rays, showing that they consisted of negatively charged particles smaller than atoms, the first "subatomic particles", which had already been named electrons by Irish physicist George Johnstone Stoney in 1891.
The terms anode and cathode are not defined by the voltage polarity of electrodes, but are usually defined by the direction of current through the electrode. An anode usually is the electrode of a device through which conventional current (positive charge) flows into the device from an external circuit, while a cathode usually is the electrode through which conventional current flows out of ...
In 1899 Thomson reiterated his atomic model in a paper that showed that negative electricity created by ultraviolet light landing on a metal (known now as the photoelectric effect) has the same mass-to-charge ratio as cathode rays; then he applied his previous method for determining the charge on ions to the negative electric particles created ...
Negatively charged ions [14] are produced when a free electron collides with an atom and is subsequently trapped inside the electric potential barrier, releasing any excess energy. The process is known as electron capture ionization .
In electrolytes, such as salt water, the charge carriers are ions, [6] which are atoms or molecules that have gained or lost electrons so they are electrically charged. Atoms that have gained electrons so they are negatively charged are called anions, atoms that have lost electrons so they are positively charged are called cations. [7]