Ions from liquid gold

The application of a high electric field to the surface of a liquid metal in vacuum can produce intense beams of metal ions or a beam containing both ions and charged droplets. The field emission systems based upon these processes, in the development of which liquid gold is used extensively, show considerable promise for high technology applications. In particular, the manufacture of submicron very large scale integrated (VLSI) microcircuits, and hybrid microcircuits may be radically affected.