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Updated: Aug 9, 2026

Electrochemical Etching and Characterization of Sharp Field Emission Points for Electron Impact Ionization
Published on: July 12, 2016
Field emission tip as a nanometer source of free electron femtosecond pulses
Peter Hommelhoff1, Yvan Sortais, Anoush Aghajani-Talesh
1Physics Department, Stanford University, Stanford, California 94305, USA. hommelhoff@stanford.edu
Abstract:
We report a source of free electron pulses based on a field emission tip irradiated by a low-power femtosecond laser. The electron pulses are shorter than 70 fs and originate from a tip with an emission area diameter down to 2 nm. Depending on the operating regime we observe either photofield emission or optical field emission with up to 200 electrons per pulse at a repetition rate of 1 GHz. This pulsed electron emitter, triggered by a femtosecond oscillator, could serve as an efficient source for time-resolved electron interferometry, for time-resolved nanometric imaging and for synchrotrons.
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