A novel type of BaO/SrO oxide cathode with 5% addition of Ni powder by weight on a Ni cap containing an activating impurity was studied. The conductivity and the electron activation energy were studied as a function of temperature in the range of 300-1200 K after conversion and activation of the cathode at 1200 K for 1 h. The experimental results yield three values for the activation energy of 1.49, 2.23 and 3.3 eV, which are close to BaO band structure parameters with a small shift due to the effect of other oxide components and metallic fraction additions. The experiments furthermore confirm that the current density of the cathode was enhanced at high temperature range with the long operation. The conduction mechanisms observed a metallic conduction at low temperature after operation for several 100 h due to improvements in the Ba coverage layer on the grains of oxide layer. Additionally, there appears a qualified conduction stability of the current density J = 10-45 mA cm(-2) at the acceleration temperature range of 1100-1150 K under the duty of low voltage. The low voltage duty V = 30 mV is focused on the conduction electrons faraway from the emission electrons. (c) 2004 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.