Patent ID: 11955306
Assignee: MICRO-X LIMITED
Field: Electrical machinery, apparatus, energy (Electrical engineering)
Classification: CPC H  C  B | IPC B  C  H

Claim 0:
1. A method for manufacturing a field emission electron source device comprising:
forming a current sharing matrix layer electrically connected to a substrate, wherein the current sharing matrix is either bonded to the substrate, deposited on the substrate, formed directly on the substrate, or formed directly in the substrate;
forming an emitter surface comprised of a plurality of nanoscale field emitters electrically connected to the matrix sharing layer, wherein the emitter surface is formed by either obtaining a plurality of nanoscale field emitters and bonding to the current sharing matrix layer or forming the plurality of nanoscale field emitters directly on the current sharing matrix layer,
wherein
the current sharing matrix incorporates a plurality of series resistive pathways between the plurality of individual nanoscale field emitters and the substrate to force current sharing among the plurality of individual nanoscale field emitters,
and the plurality of individual nanoscale field emitters, matrix material, substrate, are configured to form a plurality of structures such that the structures form electric field enhancement features at a plurality of scales from a macroscopic scale down to the nanoscopic scale wherein the structures are fractal, geometrically repeating, and/or randomly distributed, and
such that in use, the field emission electron source device emits electrons with a spatially even distribution across an emitter region of the emitter surface having an area of at least one square millimeter and at a current density greater or equal to one milliampere per square millimeter.