The emittance required for the SCALPEL system is very large; on the order of 2 mm mrad. This can be achieved with an electron source using advanced, large area cathodes and complicated extraction optics, but in this article an alternative approach is presented: devices which increase the effective emittance of an electron beam by creating an array of subbeams. After we have explained the theory, we discuss three different configurations which form electrostatic microlens array-like fields, and we show results from computer modeling.