Thanks to their high brightness, field emitters are the electron sources of choice in most high-end electron microscopes. Under typical operating conditions, the available emission current from these emitters is largely limited by practical considerations, and extracting significantly larger currents is usually not possible without reducing the lifetime of the emitter or even damaging it. Such limitations may, however, not apply if the emitter is only briefly subjected to extreme operating conditions so that damage can be outrun. Here, we demonstrate that it is possible to temporarily operate a Schottky emitter far outside its stable operating regime and significantly increase its emission current. We do so by locally heating the tip of the emitter with a microsecond laser pulse, which boosts the emission current by a factor of 3.7 to nearly 450 μA. We believe that the generation of intense microsecond electron pulses from a field emitter will particularly benefit the atomic-resolution imaging of fast processes that occur on the microsecond timescale.
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Intense microsecond electron pulses from a Schottky emitter
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8 June 2020
Research Article|
June 09 2020
Intense microsecond electron pulses from a Schottky emitter
Gabriele Bongiovanni
;
Gabriele Bongiovanni
Laboratory of Molecular Nanodynamics, École Polytechnique Fédérale de Lausanne
, 1015 Lausanne, Switzerland
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Pavel K. Olshin
;
Pavel K. Olshin
Laboratory of Molecular Nanodynamics, École Polytechnique Fédérale de Lausanne
, 1015 Lausanne, Switzerland
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Marcel Drabbels
;
Marcel Drabbels
Laboratory of Molecular Nanodynamics, École Polytechnique Fédérale de Lausanne
, 1015 Lausanne, Switzerland
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Ulrich J. Lorenz
Ulrich J. Lorenz
a)
Laboratory of Molecular Nanodynamics, École Polytechnique Fédérale de Lausanne
, 1015 Lausanne, Switzerland
a)Author to whom correspondence should be addressed: [email protected]
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a)Author to whom correspondence should be addressed: [email protected]
Appl. Phys. Lett. 116, 234103 (2020)
Article history
Received:
March 30 2020
Accepted:
May 22 2020
Citation
Gabriele Bongiovanni, Pavel K. Olshin, Marcel Drabbels, Ulrich J. Lorenz; Intense microsecond electron pulses from a Schottky emitter. Appl. Phys. Lett. 8 June 2020; 116 (23): 234103. https://doi.org/10.1063/5.0009442
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