Laser produced silicon field emission arrays

Summary form only given. Commonly the Si tips of electron emitters are manufactured using the wet or dry etching formation routes. The aim of this work is to create Si field emitters without lithography by using new laser technology. Monocrystalline Si wafers were processed on air by YAG:Nd/sup 3+/ laser irradiation with energy density that overstepped the melting threshold with following stain etch. When the laser beam scanned the wafer in the continuous regime, we obtained a strongly macrorough surface without single tips. Under the influence of one by one laser pulses, the single conical tips were formed. The distances between tips were 50 /spl mu/m, their heights were 50-100 /spl mu/m, as the SEM micrographs showed. In both cases the surfaces are very developed with many protuberances on them.