AVS 45th International Symposium
    Vacuum Technology Division Wednesday Sessions
       Session VT-WeM

Invited Paper VT-WeM8
A Poor Vacuum Tolerant, Low-Voltage, Scalable, Thin-Film-Edge Dispenser Field Emitter Array

Wednesday, November 4, 1998, 10:40 am, Room 329

Session: Vacuum Microelectronics
Presenter: D.S.Y. Hsu, Naval Research Laboratory
Authors: D.S.Y. Hsu, Naval Research Laboratory
H.F. Gray, Naval Research Laboratory
Correspondent: Click to Email
A new low-voltage, poor-vacuum-tolerant, area-scalable, field emitter array (FEA) electron source has been developed for field emitter displays (FEDs). The new FEA cell has a horizontal gate to minimize capacitance and a vertically oriented multi-layer thin-film-edge dispenser field emitter. This multilayer thin-film emitter is made with alternating high work function and low work function metal thin films with a total thickness in the range of 60-75 nm. The FEA cell aperture diameter is about 400 nm and the height of the emitter is about 0.5 micrometers. Spacing between the gate aperture edge and the emitter film is about 75-90 nm. This new FEA, based on chemical beam deposition, is fundamentally self aligned and should not depend on high resolution lithography. All dimensions are totally independent; that is, the FEA cell aperture diameter, spacing between gate edge and emitter, emitter height, insulator thickness, gate thickness, number of multi-layers, thickness of multi-layers, etc. can be independently designed without effecting the other dimensions. The number of processing steps is less than 1/3 the number required for other FEAs. We have measured single FEA cell emission of about 5-10 microamps using an extraction voltage of 60 volts and about 10 nanoamps with 30 volts. We have also observed no emission degradation after repeated cycling from 10@super -8@ to 10@super -6@ torr of room air. No activation procedures are required and exposure to atmosphere has no measurable effect.