Analogue investigations of electric field distribution and ion trajectories in the field ion microscope

Analytical investigations of the electric field and stress acting on a field ion microscope specimen are based on the assumption that the specimen is smooth, ie the effects of shape variations at the atomic level are not considered. In this paper the possibilities of investigating the corresponding field variations by the use of analogue techniques are discussed, and preliminary experiments on field and trajectory determinations using a resistance network and a two-dimensional field-plotter are described. These techniques are able to give a valuable qualitative idea of the effects arising from various topographical features of the specimen end-form.