Diamond emitter arrays with uniform self-aligned gate built from silicon-on-insulator wafer

A;self-aligned gate fabrication technique utilizing silicon-on-insulator te chnology is developed for the fabrication of large uniform arrays of diamon d field emitters with self-aligned gate and sharp tip cathode. A uniform ar ray with millions of gated diamond microemitters was reproducibly achieved. The diamond field emitter array, tested in triode configuration with an ex ternal anode, has a low turn-on gate voltage of 26 V. A high emission curre nt of 1 muA per tip was obtained at a gate voltage of approximately 60 V an d an anode voltage of 200 V. The ability to modulate emission current at lo w gate voltage allows more practical usage of a diamond field emitter in va cuum microelectronics. (C) 2001 American Vacuum Society.