A fabrication process of nanosplit emission sites has been developed with a minimum gap size of 12 nm using beam assisted processing. The electron emission patterns on a phosphor screen from a conventional single emitter and nanosplit emitters with various gap sizes were observed at room temperature and 77 K. The emission patterns from the conventional single emitter had a single spot at all the gate voltages. On the other hand, the emission patterns with two spots and additional spots were observed from the nanosplit emitters at gate voltages close to the turn-on voltages and the two spots became overlapped at. a higher gate voltage. (c) 2005 American Vacuum Society.