The paper reports the design of a novel electron gun based on photoemission of carbon nanotubes.The electron gun
using the traditional Pierce structure
can generate 6A peak pulse beam current and average beam cur- rent of 12mA when the applied DC voltage is 200kV and the driven laser’s wavelength is 800-850nm.This novel electron gun has the simply structure and high quantum efficiency relative to traditional photocathode electron gun. Additionally the electron gun test platform undergoing was introduced in the paper.The electron performance espe- cially the lifetime and the quantum efficiency of the cathode will be studied thoroughly.