Keywords

silicon field emitters, semiconductor lithography, electron current, energy distribution

Abstract

We have fabricated arrays of silicon field emitters using semiconductor lithography techniques. The density of the tips was 10^5/cm^2. The maximum current that can be extracted from each emitter is limited by resistive heating. We have investigated how the electron current emitted changes under constant applied voltage. We found that the current is very sensitive to the vacuum conditions. We attribute this to sputtering of the emitters due to ionized residual gas molecules. The poorer the vacuum, the higher the instability in the current. We studied this phenomenon at 10^6 and 10-x Torr. The model of two concentric spherical shells is used to obtain the ion energy distribution. This is then used to calculate the rate of ion bombardment and the rate of atoms sputtered. A lifetime of the tip can be deduced from these calculations.

Original Publication Citation

The following article appeared in W.I. Karain, L. V. Knight, D. D. Allred and A. Reyes-Mena, "Emitted current instability from silicon field emission emitters due to sputtering by residual gas ions," Journal of Vacuum Science Technology A 12(4), 2581 85 (1994). and can be found at [http://avspublications.org/jvsta/resource/1/jvtad6/v12/i4/p2581_s1][http://dx.doi.org/1.1116/1.57961].

Document Type

Peer-Reviewed Article

Publication Date

1994-07-01

Permanent URL

http://hdl.lib.byu.edu/1877/2896

Publisher

American Vacuum Society

Language

English

College

Physical and Mathematical Sciences

Department

Physics and Astronomy

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