A cold-cathode arc-discharge tube

A grid-controlled arc-discharge tube which requires neither power nor time for heating the cathode, but in which a discharge of several hundred amperes is controlled by an extremely small amount of power in the grid circuit, is described in this paper. The tube has characteristics especially useful in circuits requiring large peak current but low average current, some examples of which are given here, and is applicable particularly as a light source in stroboscopes.