Properties of electron field emitters prepared by selected area depositionof CVD diamond carbon films

Selected area depositions (SAD) of diamond films were successfully achieved on silicon by two different approaches. In the first case, a standard lift -off technique employing a patterned SiO2 layer was used as a mask, and in the second case commercial ink-jet printer technology was adapted to be use d to seed diamond nano-grit onto silicon. Patterned, boron-doped diamond pa ds roughly 5.6 mu m in diameter were formed by CVD growth on patterned SiO2 /Si substrates and found to be composed of closely packed carbon clusters a pproximately 250-800 nm in size each containing 50-nm particles embedded in them. The patterned diamond film seeded by ink-jet printing formed after C VD growth with in situ boron-doping, dots (85 mu m in diameter) containing poly-crystals in the nanometre range. The resulting patterned diamond films were characterised by Raman and scanning electron microscope (SEM) analysi s and then configured as cold cathode field emitters to determine their ele ctron emission performance. The results suggest that patterned diamond film s produced by ink-jet printing offer a simpler method for fabricating plana r diamond emitter arrays with field emission and conduction properties whic h could be tailored to improve the performance and fabrication cost of cold held emitters in state-of-the-art field emission displays. (C) 2000 Elsevi er Science S.A, All rights reserved.