Lithium electron work function: State of the art

Main findings on the lithium electron work function in ultrahigh vacuum, including the results of the authors, are reviewed. The data were obtained by the Fowler absolute method on polycrystalline lithium samples with various purity grades. It turns out that published data for the emissivity and work function of the lithium electron are scarce. It is shown that when the purity of the initial material (LE-1 lithium) grows by an order of magnitude, the electron work function rises by 7–10% and its temperature coefficient decreases by six times in absolute value.