Integrated multichip field emission electron source fabricated by laser-micromachining and MEMS technology

In this work, high-current field emission electron source chips were fabricated using laser-micromachining and MEMS technology. The resulting chips were combined with commercially available printed circuit boards (PCBs) to obtain a multichip electron source. By controlling the separate electron sources using an external current control circuit, we were able to divide the desired total current evenly across the individual chips deployed in the PCB-carrier. In consequence, we were able to show a decreased degradation due to the reduced current load per chip. First, a single electron source chip was measured without current regulation. A steady-state emission current of 1 mA with a high stability of ±1.3% at an extraction voltage of 250 V was observed. At this current level, a mean degradation slope of −0.7 μA/min with a nearly perfect transmission ratio of 99% ± 0.4% was determined. The measurements of a fully assembled multichip PCB-carrier electron source, using a current control circuit for regulation, showed that an even distribution of the desired total current led to a decreased degradation. This was determined by the increase in the required extraction voltage over time. For this purpose, two current levels were applied to the electron source chips of the PCB-carrier using an external current control circuit. First, 300 μA total current was evenly distributed among the individual electron source chips followed by the emission of 300 μA per electron source chip. This allows the observation of the influence of a distributed and nondistributed total current, carried by the electron source chips. Thereby, we obtained an increase in the mean degradation slope from +0.011 V/min (300 μA distributed) to +0.239 V/min (300 μA per chip), which is approximately 21 times higher. Moreover, our current control circuit improved the current stability to under 0.1% for both current levels, 300 μA distributed and 300 μA per chip.