Development of a LaB6 based ultra-bright cold field emitter electron source

We present our work on the development and characterization of a practical and robust LaB
6
based cold field emitter electron source. To this end we prepared a Tantalum mounted single crystal LaB
6
rod that was chemically etched, yielding an apex size of 2μm. The obtained tip is loaded into a ultra high vacuum chamber for pulsed emission in the μs regime, using extraction voltage pulsing. Further processing using focused ion beam (FIB) milling, and conditioning using a build-up technique will be used to reduce the apex size to the nm range.