Ion and electron energies in gated field emitter failures

Author

Browning, J. ; Meassick, S. ; Xia, Z. ; Chan, C. ; McGruer, N.

Author_Institution

Dept. of Electr. & Comput. Eng., Northeastern Univ., Boston, MA, USA

Volume

21

Issue

2

fYear

1993

fDate

4/1/1993 12:00:00 AM

Firstpage

259

Lastpage

260

Abstract

In previous work (1992), the authors studied the characteristics of gated field emitter failures and developed a theory to explain failure initiation. During a failure, the voltage between the emitter tip and gate (spaced 1 μm apart) was found to drop from -140 V to ≈-10 V. The current density was found to be ~10¹² A/m² during the failure, and plumes of ions and electrons were injected into vacuum. The ratio of ion current to electron current was found to be 10%. Those results indicated that the failures were similar to cathodic vacuum arcs. In the present study the energies of the ions and electrons are measured using a retarding potential energy analyzer. The results show that there are ions with energies as high as 80 eV and electrons with energies of 6 eV. The high-energy ions confirm that emitter failures are cathodic vacuum arcs

Keywords

current density; electron field emission; failure analysis; vacuum microelectronics; -140 to -10 V; 1 micron; 6 eV; 80 eV; Si-SiO₂-Al; cathodic vacuum arcs; current density; electron energy; failure initiation; gated field emitter failures; ion energy; retarding potential energy analyzer; Battery charge measurement; Electromagnetic fields; Electromagnetic propagation; Electromagnetic scattering; Electromagnetic wave polarization; Electron emission; Elementary particle vacuum; Equations; Vacuum arcs; Voltage;

fLanguage

English

Journal_Title

Plasma Science, IEEE Transactions on

Publisher

ieee

ISSN

0093-3813

Type

jour

DOI

10.1109/27.219398

Filename

219398