Single-Crystal LaB6 as Thermal Field Emitter for Electron Microscope
Thermal field emission (T.F.E.) properties of single crystal LaB6 -tips has been investigated by observing emission patterns. Applying field evaporation technique we succeeded to get the clean pattern consisting of <310> spots with very good reproducibility. This investigation has led to conclusion;, the <310> spot is promising electron source of high brightness provided that the tip is operated at tip temperature∽ 1000-1050°C in vacuum of 10−9 Torr region.As a preliminary experiment of brightness-measurement, we mounted the <310> LaB6-tip in a commercial type TEM, JEM-100CX-FEG, attached with an electron gun system for T.F.E. of <100> W-tip, being operated at 10−9 Torr region without Schottky shield electrode. The LaB6-tip, however, can not be operated without the Schottky shield because thermionic emission (T.E.) from the LaB6-tip is considerably high even though the tip is operated at lower than ∽1000 °C. In the present experiment, therefore, we manufactured a Schottky shield electrode as shown in Fig.l and performed the measurement of brightness by setting the Schottky shield electrode, applied the same voltage as the tip since the electron gun system has no extra feed-throughs for bias-voltage.