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Definition
A cathode is one of two points indicating current flow on an electrical device (anode and cathode). On a battery, for instance, the anode is the “+” end and the cathode is the “-” end. On a tube circuit, the cathode (filament) typically goes to - or ground and the anode (plate) typically goes to the + or positive rail.
Technical
A ‘’’cathode’’’ is an electrode through which ‘’(positive)’’ ‘’electric current‘’ flows ‘’out of’’ a polarized electrical device. Mnemonic: CCD (Cathode Current Departs).
To dispel a common misconception, often incorrectly inferred from the correct fact that in all electrochemical devices positively charged cations move towards the cathode and/or negatively charged anions move away from it, cathode polarity is not always negative but depends on the device type, and sometimes even in which mode it operates, as determined by the above current direction based universal definition.
Examples:
* In a discharging battery or galvanic cell (drawing) the cathode is the positive terminal, where conventional current flows out. This outward current is carried internally by positive ions moving from the electrolyte to the positive cathode (chemical energy is responsible for this “uphill” motion). It is continued externally by electrons moving inwards, negative charge moving one way amounting to positive current flowing the other way.
* In a recharging battery, or an electrolytic cell, the cathode is the negative terminal, which sends current back to the external generator.
* In a diode, it is the negative terminal at the pointed end of the arrow symbol, where current flows out of the device. Note electrode naming for diodes is always based on the direction of the forward current (that of the arrow, in which the current flows “most easily"), even for types such as zener diodes or solar cells where the current of interest is the reverse current.
* In a cathode ray tube, it is the negative terminal where electrons flow in, i.e., where current flows out of the device.
An electrode through which current flows the other way (into the device) is termed an anode.
Etymology
The word was coined in 1834 from the Greek κάθοδος (’’kathodos’’), ‘descent’ or ‘way down’, by William Whewell, who had been consulted by Michael Faraday over some new names needed to complete a paper on the recently discovered process of electrolysis. In that paper Faraday explained that when an electrolytic cell is oriented so that electric current traverses the “decomposing body” (electrolyte) in a direction “from East to West, or, which will strengthen this help to the memory, that in which the sun appears to move”, the cathode is where the current leaves the electrolyte, on the West side: “‘’kata’’ downwards, ‘’`odos’’ a way ; the way which the sun sets” .
The use of ‘West’ to mean the ‘out’ direction (actually ‘out’ → ‘West’ → ‘sunset’ → ‘down’) may appear unnecessarily contrived. Previously, as related in the first reference cited above, Faraday had used the more straightforward term “exode” (the doorway where the current exits). His motivation for changing it to something meaning ‘the West electrode’ (other candidates had been “westode”, “occiode” and “dysiode") was to make it immune to a possible later change in the direction convention for current, whose exact nature was not known at the time. The reference he used to this effect was the Earth’s magnetic field direction, which at that time was believed to be invariant. He fundamentally defined his arbitrary orientation for the cell as being that in which the internal current would run parallel to and in the same direction as a hypothetical magnetizing current loop around the local line of latitude which would induce a magnetic dipole field oriented like the Earth’s. This made the internal current East to West as previously mentioned, but in the event of a later convention change it would have become West to East, so that the West electrode would not have been the ‘way out’ any more. Therefore “exode” would have become inappropriate, whereas “cathode” meaning ‘West electrode’ would have remained correct with respect to the unchanged direction of the actual phenomenon underlying the current, then unknown but, he thought, unambiguously defined by the magnetic reference. In retrospect the name change was unfortunate, not only because the Greek roots alone do not reveal the cathode’s function any more, but more importantly because, as we now know, the Earth’s magnetic field direction on which the “cathode” term is based is subject to reversals whereas the current direction convention on which the “exode” term was based has no reason to change in the future.
Since the later discovery of the electron, an easier to remember, and more durably technically correct (although historically false), etymology has been suggested: cathode, from the Greek ‘’kathodos’’, ‘way down’, ‘the way (down) into the cell (or other device) for electrons’.
Flow of electrons
The flow of electrons is always from anode to cathode outside of the cell or device, regardless of the cell or device type and operating mode, with the exception of diodes where electrode naming always assumes current flows in the forward direction (that of the arrow symbol), i.e., electrons flow in the opposite direction, even when the diode reverse-conducts either by accident (breakdown of a normal diode) or by design (breakdown of a Zener diode, photo-current of a photodiode or solar cell).
Vacuum tubes
In a vacuum tube or electronic vacuum system, the cathode emits free electrons. Electrons are extracted from metal electrodes either by heating the electrode, causing thermionic emission, or by applying a strong electric field and causing field emission. Electrons can also be emitted from the electrodes of certain metals when light of frequency greater than the threshold frequency falls on it. This effect is called photoelectric emission.
edited from Wikipedia