Electron beam apparatus and method for generating a pulsed electron beam and applications thereof

Abstract

An electron beam apparatus (100) for generating a pulsed electron beam (1), comprising a sequence of electron pulses, comprises a radiation source device 10 for creating a sequence of emitter excitation pulses (2), in particular laser pulses, an electron source device (20) having a photoemission electron source (21) for radiation-induced emission of source electron pulses (3) in response to an irradiation with the emitter excitation pulses (2), a number state dispersion device (30) for spatially separating the source electron pulses (3) into sub-pulses (4, 4A), wherein each sub-pulse (4, 4A) includes an integer electron number n, with n=1, 2, 3, . . . , and a number state selector device (40) for selecting sub-pulses (4, 4A) comprising at least one set of predetermined electron number states as the pulsed electron beam (1) to be generated. Preferably, the photoemission electron source (21) is configured for generating countable low-charge electron pulses, e.g., including 1, 2, 3 or 4 electrons per pulse. Furthermore, methods of generating a pulsed electron beam (1) and method of using the electron beam apparatus am described.

Dependencies are inferred from the claim text.