Investigation of the electron emission from pores in a diamond porous membrane

Abstract

The emitters based on metallized porous diamond membranes were successfully prepared. This approach has significant advantages regarding vacuum performance and that field emission occurs at fields below 10 kV/mm was observed. Early field and vacuum calculations demonstrated the usefulness of this concept. Photoemission electron microscopy (PEEM) results showed that the region around the pore is indeed the place where the emitting sites are located, but there was not enough spatial resolution in the microscope to determine whether emission was from the edges of the metallic film or from the nearby diamond. No emission was observed between pores.