Electron Gun for a Grade 9 Physics Project?

[Jake2003]

I am in grade 9 in the IB curriculum and next year I have to do something called a "Personal Project" where I have to make something and explain why I did it. I would like to recreate the double slit experiment. However, I have to obtain a electron gun and they are quite hard to come across. So I was wondering whether anyone on here has any idea how to obtain one or a better experiment to recreate that wouldn't require something as expensive or hard to get?

 

[Nugatory]

I am sorry to have to say that there is no practical and safe way for you to replicate the quantum-mechanical version of the double-slit experiment.

It is realistic to try replicating the classical version of the experiment, which demonstrates the wave nature of light and was first done by Thomas Young early in the 19th century. For that, you could use a readily available low-powered laser, even a laser pointer will be good enough. However, that's not showing the quantum mechanical effect in which the interference pattern is built up by individual photons arriving over time - for that you would need both a source that generates single photons at a time and a detector capable of detecting and recording the arrival of a single photon.

Working with electrons is even more difficult. First, they're electrically charged and interact with random air molecules so you would need to enclose the beam in a hard vacuum. Second, an electron beam poses a significant radiation hazard.

 

[Khashishi]

Old TVs have cathode ray tubes. The screen is made of thick leaded glass to block most of the x-rays. If you somehow opened the vacuum section, you could put a slit between one of the electron guns and the screen. But, I don't know how you would be able to close it up again with a good vacuum seal. There must be a way that the TVs were originally assembled, using a vacuum pump. Maybe ask someone who used to make these TVs.

 

[berkeman]

If you somehow opened the vacuum section

We're getting into dangerous discussion territory here, so the thread will be closed now. It's pretty hard to "open" an old CRT glass envelope without initiating an implosion. And those are messy and dangerous. Do not ask me how I know this.