The electron emission capability of recently developed thermal electron emitters which can be delineated into small areas of almost any desirable shape by standard photolithographic processes has been studied. The emission performance is found to be comparable to standard sprayed oxide coated cathodes, i.e., the effective work function &phgr;E(1000 K) ≃ 1.66 ± 0.50 eV and &Dgr;&phgr;E/&Dgr;T≃ 6.3 × 10−4eV/K.