Patent 7888654 was granted and assigned to FEI Company on February, 2011 by the United States Patent and Trademark Office.
A stable cold field electron emitter is produced by forming a coating on an emitter base material. The coating protects the emitter from the adsorption of residual gases and from the impact of ions, so that the cold field emitter exhibits short term and long term stability at relatively high pressures and reasonable angular electron emission.