Method of making a cathode from tungsten powder

Claim 1

Method of making a cathode for operation in microwave devices from tungsten powder, said method including the steps of: (A) ball milling the tungsten powder for a bout 8 hours, (B) pressing the ball milled powder into a billet at about 48,000 psi in a die, (C) sintering the billet at about 70° C. to 1325 ° C. for about thirty minutes in dry hydrogen of less than -100 dewpoint, (D) backfilling the billet with methyl methacrylate; (E) machining the billet to the desired geometry, (F) removing the methyl methacrylate by dissolution in acetone, (G) thoroughly rinsing in deionized water, methanol and then drying, (H) firing the billet in dry hydrogen at about 700° C. to 1325° C. for about 15 minutes, (I) impregnating the billet with an impregnant formed from adding about 1 mole of a member selected from the group consisting of zirconium, zirconium dioxide, hafnium, hafnium dioxide, uranium, uranium dioxide, titanium, and titanium dioxide to about 50 to about 100 moles of a compound selected from the group consisting of Ba 3 Al 2 O 6 , Ba 3 WO 6 , and Ba 4 Al 2 O 7 by firing the billet in a dry hydrogen furnace at a temperature at which the impregnant melts for about two minutes, (J) removing the billet from the furnace after the furnace is cooled, and (K) removing any loose pieces of impregnant from the billet.