FABRICATION OF METAL FIELD EMITTER ARRAYS ON POLYCRYSTALLINE SILICON

Cone-shaped metal field emitter arrays were fabricated on a single hea vily doped polysilicon layer. From the observation of the metal held e mitter fabricated on the single-polysilicon layer, it was noticed that the irregular shape of the gate aperture was caused by the large grai n size of heavily doped polysilicon after oxidation. Therefore, in ord er to obtain a good shape, the double layers of polysilicon where one was heavily doped and the other was not doped were used. The undoped p olysilicon layer was consumed for the gate oxide layer and the doped p olysilicon layer was used to serve as a conducting cathode layer. The small grain size of the undoped polysilicon after oxidation led to an improved shape of the gate aperture which rendered a stable emission c haracteristic. (C) 1997 American Vacuum Society.