Investigation of the Spindt type cathode formation mechanism by simulation and experiments

In this article, the Spindt-type metal emitter formation mechanism is investigated by the real fabrication and the simulation. There are several factors closely related to emission characterizations required for field emission display. Among these factors, the aspect ratio (emitter height/bottom diameter of emitter) is the most important parameter mainly determined by the physical properties of evaporation materials and process condition. On the emitter tip, the emission current depends on the aspect ratio which affects the suitable current density for field emission display. When the metal emitter cone is fabricated by electron beam evaporator, the dependence of aspect ratio on the evaporation material and the evaporation condition is analyzed by the particle simulation using the modified ballistic deposition (BD) model at various conditions. Based on the result stated above, the formation mechanism of metal field emitter is analyzed with experimental data and the optimized process condition is obtained for the high aspect ratio.