Effect of ageing process on performance of molybdenum field emission arrays

The paper describes the beneficial effect of application of ballast resistors and an ageing process on the stability of field emission from Mo-tips. High-resistant silicon substrates were used as ballast resistor and better emission uniformity was obtained as compared with low-resistant silicon. The emission current of the field emitter arrays (FEAs) increased by 43% and 50% by DC and pulse mode ageing, respectively, and the emission current fluctuation as a function of time was decreased to 3.7%.