Influence of the fringe field and the field interaction on the emission performance of a diode emitter array

In the held emitter array, there is a fringe field surrounding the emitter array. The fringe field and the interactive field between different tips will influence the emission uniformity of the emitter array. This paper studies the influences of the fringe field and the interactive field on the emission performance of a diode emitter array. The variations of the emission currents versus the width of the margin of the array are given. From these results, the influences of the fringe field on the emissions of the center tips and the corner tips are obtained. This paper also analyses the dependence of the fringe field and the interactive field on the cathode-anode distance and the tip-to-tip spacing. (C) 2000 Elsevier Science B.V. All rights reserved.