AVS 49th International Symposium
    Processing at the Nanoscale Thursday Sessions
       Session PN-ThA

Paper PN-ThA6
Structure and Field Emission Properties of SiC Nanotip Arrays Fabricated by Electron-cyclotron-resonance Plasma Process of Monolithic Si Wafer

Thursday, November 7, 2002, 3:40 pm, Room C-109

Session: Charged Particle Patterning and Emission
Presenter: L.C. Chen, National Taiwan University
Authors: L.C. Chen, National Taiwan University
H.C. Lo, Institute of Atomic and Molecular Sciences
J.S. Hwang, Institute of Atomic and Molecular Sciences
J.S. Hsu, Institute of Atomic and Molecular Sciences
C.F. Chen, National Chiao-Tung University, Taiwan
D. Das, Institute of Atomic and Molecular Sciences
K.H. Chen, Institute of Atomic and Molecular Sciences
Correspondent: Click to Email
Fabrication of SiC nanotip arrays of a few microns in height and around 1 nm in diameter at the tip and of density as high as 10@super 12@cm@super -2@ is reported. The mechanism of the nanotip formation by electron cyclotron resonance (ECR) plasma process and detailed structure analyses using high resolution TEM will be presented. It is concluded that the tips are primarily composed of SiC. The nanotip arrays showed magnificent field emission property with typical field emission current of 0.5 mAcm@super -2@ at an applied field as low as 0.8 V/µm. Furthermore, the nanotip arrays also exhibited excellent stability, as evident by temporal evolution of the emission current at a constant applied voltage measurement which showed less than 3% fluctuation in one hour. The SiC nanotip array produced by ECR-plasma process of monolithic Si wafer offers a reliable, economic field emission electron source alternative to carbon nanotubes. Formation of the SiC nanotip on top of a Si cantilever has also been demonstrated. Such geometry provides potential applications in ultrahigh resolution SPM and field emission microscopy.