Field emission characteristics of LaB6 single tip emitter

This paper describes the field emission characteristics of electrochemically fabricated lanthanum hexaboride (LaB6) single tip emitters. It is found that high pressure operation will significantly enlarge the effective emission area and emission current density. This phenomenon is contributed to the bombardment of ions generated by residual gas molecules interacting with emitted electrons. High pressure operation is probably a method to activate LaB6 field emitters.