Diamond coated silicon field emitter array

Diamond coated silicon tip arrays, with and without a self-aligned gate, we re fabricated, and current-voltage characteristics of 400 tips were measure d. Diamond films were grown uniformly on Si tips using microwave plasma aft er nucleation with 10 nm diamond Suspension and substrate bias. An emission current of 57 mu A was obtained at 5 V from the ungated array tips separat ed from an anode at 2 mu m. In the case of the gated arrays with 1.5 mu m a perture; an emission current of 3.4 mu A was measured at a gate voltage of 80 V for an anode separation of 200 mu m. The turn-on voltages for these tw o types of devices were 0.2 and 40 V, respectively; Diamond coated-Si tip a rrays have potential applications in field emission based low voltage vacuu m electronic devices and microsensors. (C) 1999 American Vacuum Society. [S 0734-2101(99)05804-2].