High-field formation of multipoint field-electron emitters

Using the field-ion and field-electron microscopy techniques, it is demonstrated that the efficiency of formation of field-induced-emission sources with developed (multipoint) surfaces can be increased due to the phenomenon of evaporation in a strong electric field in the presence of an active gas. The proposed emitter formation process is self-consistent and terminates upon attaining equality of local field factors over the vertices of point emitters irrespective of their initial distribution with respect to the radius of curvature and the local factor of mutual screening.