Design and Performance of a Miniaturized, Low-Energy, Large Beam Spot Electron Flood Gun

Charge accumulation often occurs in electron optics equipment and interferes with their operation. The trouble can be handled by using the electron flood gun. However, there are still some scenarios where neutralization is not as desired. To achieve a better charge neutralization effect and to facilitate work in confined spaces, a small size, low-energy electron flood gun providing a large area and uniform electron beam has been required. This article employs Munro’s Electron Beam Software (MEBS) to simulate the effect of the structure parameters on the performance of the beam. Based on the simulation results, the electron flood gun is processed and assembled. To verify the performance of the electron flood gun, this paper proposes a new “pinhole scanning method”. By using the method, we have achieved in-situ measurements of beam current and beam spot. The experimental results generally match the simulation results, which demonstrates that the electron flood gun has good performance and is likely to have many applications.