High-resolution energy measurement of field-emitted electrons from a single crystalline magnetite whisker

A high-resolution energy analyzer system for measuring energy distribution of field-emitted charged particles has been developed. For high resolution to be achieved, an electrostatic bipotential lens for deceleration of particles was newly designed by using an ion optics simulation software (SIMION 3D) and coupled with the cylindrical electrostatic spectrometer developed by C. Oshima et al. To evaluate the performance of the system, we measured energy distribution of thermal-field electrons emitted from a W(111) emitter and compared with those of theoretical calculation. As a result, it was found that our system has enough resolution to measure an energy distribution of field-emitted electrons. We also measured an energy spectrum of field-emitted electrons from a -oriented single crystalline magnetite whisker that has half-metallic property. As a result, the shoulder indicating the existence of peculiar density of state was observed below the Fermi level. Copyright © 2011 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.