Field emission as electron source for scanning electron microscopes was commercially launched in the early 1970s. But it took until the early 2000s until it became a main stream product. Now this segment contains a wide range of products with different performance and capabilities.

In common all FE-SEMs (field emission scanning electron microscopes) have a more defined electron source giving them higher resolution imaging capability. Specially when you increase the beam current the image resolution is not as heavily affected as in traditional tungsten emitter SEMs.