FABRICATION AND CHARACTERIZATION OF SILICON FIELD EMITTER ARRAYS BY SPIN-ON-GLASS ETCH-BACK PROCESS

Silicon field emitter arrays have been fabricated by a novel method em ploying a two-step tip etch and spin-on-glass etch-back process using double layered thermal/tetraethylorthosilicate oxides as a gate dielec tric, Partial etching was performed by low viscosity photoresist coati ng and O-2 plasma ashing in order to form the double layered gate diel ectric. A small gate aperture with low gate leakage current was obtain ed by the novel process. The height and the radius of the fabricated e mitter was about 1.1 mu m and less than 100 Angstrom, respectively. Th e anode emission current from a 256 tip array was 23 mu A (i.e., 90 nA /tip) at a gate voltage of 60 V. The turn-on gate voltage was 40 V. Th e gate current was less than 0.1% of the total current (i.e., gate cur rent and anode current). (C) 1998 American Vacuum Society.