Interaction of the working surface of field emission cathodes from carbon fibre with ions of residual gases

Some experiments of the last years showed that the use of carbon fibre as initial material for field emission cathodes is possible for production of a number of vacuum microelectronics devices. The report presents the results of detailed study (with the help of scanning electron, field electron and field ion microscopy) of the dynamics of carbon fibre cathode microrelief change in relation to the emission properties. The authors found most optimal working modes of particular types of field electron cathodes, estimated their life-time and possible deviations of main parameters in the process of utilization