Effect of ageing process on performance of molybdenum field emission arrays

Since the invention of microfabricated field emission arrays (FEAs) several decades ago, numerous applications of FEAs have been proposed, and some are under development, such as ionizers for mass spectrometry, electron-beam lithography, surface-analyzing instruments, vacuum gauges, flat-panel displays and microwave tubes. The most prominent applications are involved with display and microwave devices. Monochrome field emission oscillographs have been produced and in some corporation, samples of color field emission display have also been exhibited. In microwave applications, theoretical and experimental research has been carried out in klystron amplifier and miniatured traveling wave tubes with effective power output obtained. In different applications, there are different requirements for FEAs. For example, displays need good emission uniformity in a large emission area, while microwave devices usually require relative high emission density and total emission current. However, even in the most dissimilar applications, emission stability of FEAs is always a fundamental requirement. In this paper an ageing process was used to improve the performance of FEAs.