TELEVISION CAMERA TUBES

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 TELEVISION CAMERA TUBES

• An electron tube use a light-sensitive material/receptor that

converts an optical image into an electrical television video
signal.
• The tube is used in a television camera to generate a train of
electrical pulses representing the light intensities present in an
optical image focused on the tube.
• Each point of this image is interrogated in its proper turn by the
beam in tube , and an electrical signal corresponding to the
amount of light at that point of the optical image is generated
by the tube. This signal represents the video or picture portion
of a television signal.

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 BASIC PRINCIPLE
• Photoconductive effect
• Photoemission effect

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 Photoemission principle
• Certain metals emit electrons when light falls on their surface.
• These emitted electrons are called photoelectrons and the
emitting surface a photocathode.
• Light consists of small bundles of energy called photons.
• When light incident on a photocathode ,the photons give
away their energy to the outer valence electrons to allow
them to overcome the potential energy barrier at the surface.

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• The number of electrons which can overcome the potential
barrier and get emitted ,depend on the light.
• Alkali metal are used as photocathode because they have very
low work function.
• Cesium silver / bismuth silver cesium oxides are preferred as
cathode surface because they are sensitive to incandescent
light and have spectral response very close to the human eye.

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 Photoconductive principle
• In some metal , when light photon fall on it then its
conductivity / resistivity change.
• Semiconductor metals like selenium, tellurium and lead with
their oxide have this property known as photoconductivity.
• The variation of resistance at each point across the surface of
the material is utilized to develop a varying signal by scanning
it uniformly with an electron beam.

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 Types of Camera Tubes

• Image Orthicon tube

• Vidicon
• Plumbicon

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 Image Orthicon tube

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 Image Orthicon tube

• Principle : Photoemissive
• It has three section:
• Image section
• Scanning section
• Electron gun –cum-multiplier section

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 Image section
• Glass plate : coated with Silver-antimony serve as
photocathode
• Lens assembly : light from the scene to be televised is focused
on the photocathode surface by lens system
• Photocathode surface is semitransparent and light rays
penetrate it to reach its inner surface where electron
emission takes place .
• Target plate : when electron emit from cathode ,it can not
store charge being a conductor .

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 • For this reason the electron image is made to move towards
the target plate located at short distance from it.
• The target plate is made of a very thin sheet of glass and
can store charge received by it. This is maintained at about
400v more +ve w.r.t photocathode
• When electron move from cathode to target plate there is
chance that it may repel each other ,this can result in
distortion of the information available as charge image.

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 • To prevent this divergence effect an axial magnetic field
generated by focus is employed
• This magnetic field impart helical motion to electrons and
focus them on target plate .
• The image side of target plate has coating of cesium that emit
secondary electron.these secondary electron is collected by
wire mesh which is located at front of target plate .
• The +ve charge appeared on target plate is proportional to
light intensity distribution on photocathode

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 Scanning section

• Fine electron beam

• Focus ,alignment coil
• Deflection coil
• 1. Horizontal deflection
• 2. Vertical deflection

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 Electron gun assembly and multiplier

• Electron gun
• Multistage electron multiplier

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 Vidicon

• Principle : Photoconductive
• It has three section:
• Target section
• Scanning section
• Electron gun

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 Target section

• Glass plate
• Lens assembly

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 Scanning section
• Fine electron beam
• Focus ,alignment coil
• Deflection coil
• 1. Horizontal deflection
• 2. Vertical deflection

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 Electron gun assembly

• Electron gun

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 Plumbicon Camera Tube

 lower image lag.

 It has fast response and produce high quality pictures
at low light level.
 It has small size and light weight and has low power
operating characteristics .
 It is similar to vidicon tube except small change in
target plate

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 Plan of a colour television camera showing generation of colour
signals and Y matrix for obtaining the luminance (brightness) signal.

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Figure shows a simple block schematic of a colour TV
camera.
It essentially consists of three camera tubes in which
each tube receives selectively filtered primary
colours.
Each camera tube develops a signal voltage
proportional to the respective colour intensity
received by it.

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Light from the scene is processed by the objective lens
system.
The image formed by the lens is split into three images
by means of glass prisms.
These prisms are designed as diachroic mirrors.
A diachroic mirror passes one wavelength and rejects
other wavelengths (colours of light).
Thus red, green, and blue colour images are formed.

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 The rays from each of the light splitters also pass
through colour filters called trimming filters.
These filters provide highly precise primary colour
images which are converted into video signals by
image-orthicon or vidicon
camera tubes.
Thus the three colour signals are generated. These
are called Red (R), Green (G) and Blue (B) signals.

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 COLOUR TELEVISION DISPLAY TUBES
• The colour television picture tube screen is
coated with three different phosphors, one for
each of the chosen red, green and blue
primaries.
• The three phosphors are physically separate
from one another and each is energized by an
electron beam of intensity that is proportional
to the respective colour voltage reproduced in
the television receiver.
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 COLOUR TELEVISION DISPLAY TUBES
• The object is to produce three coincident
rasters with produce the red, green and blue
contents of the transmitted picture.
• While seeing from a normal viewing distance
the eye integrates the three colour
information to convey the sensation of the
hue at each part of the picture.

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 COLOUR TELEVISION DISPLAY TUBES
• Based on the gun configuration and the
manner in which phosphors are arranged on
the screen, three different types of colour
picture tubes have been developed.
These are:-
• 1. Delta-gun
• 2. Guns-in-line or Precision-in-line (P-I-L)
• 3. Trintron Colour

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Delta-gun colour picture tube

(a) guns viewed from the base (b) electron beams, shadow mask and dot-triad
phosphor screen (c) showing application of ‘Y’ and colour difference signals
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between the cathodes and control grids
 DELTA-GUN COLOR PICTURE TUBE
• This tube was developed by Radio Corporation on
America (R.C.A). It employs three separate guns on
for each phosphor. The guns are equally spaced at
120 degree interval with respect to each other and
tilted inwards in relation to the axis of the tube. They
form an equilateral triangular configuration.

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 Drawbacks of the Delta-gun Tube
• Convergence is difficult and involves considerable
circuit complexity and service adjustments. In most
delta-gun tubes, four static convergence magnets
and a dynamic convergence assembly are employed.
• The focus cannot be sharp over the entire screen
because the focus and convergence planes cannot
remain coincident for the three beams which
emanate from guns positioned at 120° with respect
to each other around the tube axis.
• The electron transparency of the mask is very low
since it intercepts over 80 percent of the beam
currents.
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PRECISION-IN-LINE (P.I.L.) COLOUR PICTURE TUBE

(a) in-line guns (b) electron beams, aperture grille and striped three colour
phosphor screen(c) mountings on neck and bowl of the tube.
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 PRECISION-IN-LINE COLOR PICTURE TUBE
• This tube as the name suggests has three guns which are
aligned precisely in a horizontal line. The gun and mask
structure of the P.I.L tube together with yoke mounting.
The inline gun configuration helps in simplifying
conversions adjustments. The color phosphors are
deposited on the screen in the form of vertical strips in
triads which are repeated along the breadth of the tube.
To obtain the same color, finest as in a delta gun tube
the horizontal spacing between the strips of the same
color in adjacent traids is made equal to that between
the dots of the same color in the delta gun tube.
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 Coma Effect
• Due to nonuniformity of the deflection field all the
beams are not deflected by the same amount. As
shown in Fig. the central beam (green) deflects by a
smaller amount as compared to the other two
beams.
• For a different nonuniformity of the deflection field,
the effect could be just opposite producing too large
a displacement of the central beam.
• Such a distortion is known as coma and results in
misconvergence of the beams.
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 Trintron (cathodes in-line) colour picture tube

(a) gun structure(b) electron beams, vertical-striped three colour phosphor screen
(c) constructional, focus and convergence details
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