A method for reducing the complexity, and increasing the accuracy of field emission electron gun simulations

Problems regarding simulation of field emitter array (FEA) electron guns are discussed. A simple method is proposed to significantly reduce computational requirements such as computation power, system memory, and time of FEA electron gun simulation and modeling. The method can be applied to any numerical solver regardless of its meshing technique. In order to extract field emission parameter from any experimental cathode I–V curve, a partly numerical algorithm, which uses the presented truncation method at the heart of its solver, is proposed. The proposed method and algorithm are applied to a number of examples, including a double-gated FEA problem, and its effectiveness in terms of error in spot size, particle trajectory simulation, and beam current calculation are compared to reported experimental values, and the simulation results based on other truncation methods.

► A new method is presented for field emission array (FEA) electron gun simulations.
► The method significantly reduces the computational requirements and complexity.
► An algorithm is presented to extract emission coefficient from experimental results.
► Calculations show a reduction factor of 50 in total simulation time and required memory.
► A maximum of 1% error in particle trajectory results is ensured.