Emission distribution, brightness, and mechanical stability of the LaB6 triode electron gun

Experiments have characterized the operation of a LaB6 triode gun in a standard three-lens column of the type used for Gaussian electron-beam lithography and scanning electron microscopy. A series of images representing cross sections of the three-dimensional spatial distribution of current emitted from the gun is obtained by configuring the electron optics as a scanning confocal microscope. The gun acts as an immersion objective whose image is scanned by deflection coils and focused by the condenser lenses onto a pinhole transmission detector. Characteristics of the emission distribution include an emission image of the cathode surface situated between two distinct beam crossovers whose origin is either the apex (001) and {310} planes or the large {110} planes on the machined 90° cone angle of the cathode surface. Virtual objects are imaged when the back focal plane of the condensers falls inside the high-field region of the gun. The target axial brightness is dependent on gun excitation and angular acceptance angle. The temperature-dependent brightness of the cathode is used to determine its effective emission area, work function, and surface electric field. Beam positional stability of three-carbon-mounted LaB6 directly heated cathodes is measured. However, for measurement times ≤100 h the drift rate is found to be limited by thermal expansion of the movable anode assembly and not the particular cathode mounting technique.