Experimental Gun Brightness Measurements on a 300 kV CFEG

Abstract

Effective use of the ANL 300kV CFEG/A AEM requires a knowledge of the probe current and size distribution during operation. In most cases this can be calculated once basic parameters of the system are experimentally determined. Central to this is a determination of the source brightness of the Cold Field Emission Gun (CFEG) under standard operating conditions of the instrument. For the last ten years most probe calculations of CFEG's have been done assuming a brightness parameter of β∼×109 A/cm2/sterad2 at 100 kV, while few if any experimental values have been reported at 300 kV. Using β and the relationship that the operating probe diameter is obtained by adding in quadrature the Gaussian probe size (dg, the CFEG source contribution), and the diameters of least confusion due to spherical abberation (ds) and diffraction limits (dd) one obtains the total probe size dt as :