They sound like futuristic weapons, but electron guns are actually workhorse tools for research and industry: They emit streams of electrons for electron microscopes, semiconductor patterning equipment and particle accelerators, to name a few important uses.
Now scientists at Stanford University and the Department of Energy's SLAC National Accelerator Laboratory have figured out how to increase these electron flows 13,000-fold by applying a single layer of diamondoids – tiny, perfect diamond cages – to an electron gun's sharp gold tip.
The results, published today in Nature Nanotechnology, suggest a whole new approach for increasing the power of these devices. They also provide an avenue for designing other types of electron emitters with atom-by-atom precision, said Nick Melosh, an associate professor at SLAC and Stanford who led the study.
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