Improvement of electron emission characteristics of Si field emitter arrays by surface modification

Photoresist-coated Si field emitter array FEA.was fabricated with a newly developed fabrication process and well demonstrated. The photoresist was spin-coated on Si FEA and baked at 8008C in a vacuum to evaporate the solvent. After baking, the thickness of the photoresist reduced to 20 nm from the initial thickness of 120 nm. The SiO insulator and the x Nb gate electrode were deposited in series by electron-beam evaporation. The FEA structure was made by back etching. The emission current from the photoresist-coated FEA increased from the gate voltage of 40 V and reached 0.5 mArtip at 65 V. The obtained emission current was more stable than conventional Si FEAs. q1999 Elsevier Science B.V. All rights reserved.