Silicide application on gated single-crystal, polycrystalline and amorphous silicon FEAs - Part I: Mo silicide

In order to improve both the level and the stability of electron field emis sion, the tip surface of silicon field emitters have been coated with a mol ybdenum layer of thickness 25 nln through the gate opening and annealed rap idly at 1000 degreesC in inert gas ambient, The gate voltages of single-cry stal silicon (c-Si), polycrystalline silicon (poly-Si) and amorphous silico n (a-Si) field emitter arrays (FEAs) required to obtain anode current of 10 nA per tip are 90 V, 69 V, and 84 V, respectively. In the case of the sili cide emitters based on c-Si, poly-Si and a-Si, these gate voltages are 76 V , 63 V, and 69 V, respectively. Compared with c-Si, poly-Si and a-Si field emitters, the application of Mo silicide on the same silicon field emitters exhibited 9.6 times, 2.1 times, and 4.2 times higher maximum emission curr ent, and 6.1 times, 3.7 times, and 3.1 times lower current fluctuation, res pectively. Moreover, the emission currents of the silicide FEAs depending o n vacuum level are almost same in the range of 10(-9) similar to 10(-6) tor r. This result shows that silicide is robust in terms of anode current degr adation due to the absorption of air molecules.