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The electron current from field-emitting B-doped Si-tip arrays under illumination was studied. An improved cathode design with a patch of 271 tips yielded a reproducible cathode current between 0.2-2000 nA in the electric field range of 3.8-6.6 V/μm. The plateau in the Fowler-Nordheim plot shows the actual carrier depletion and leads to a very stable emission at ~1 μA with a current noise of less than 3.3 %. Color-filtered halogen lamp illumination was used to investigate the photo-sensitivity of the saturation current. The intensity-normalized current switching ratio increases nonlinearly with the photon energy. This hints either for secondary generation in the conduction band or deeper valence band excitation. The first is supported by a rough estimation of the quantum efficiency. Further experiments with a tunable laser and electron spectroscopy are planned.
In order to optimize our field-emitting silicon structures, the influence of geometric parameters like aspect ratio, aperture angle and curvature on the field enhancement factor was investigated by finite element simulations. A universal geometric model consisting of a rounded triangle and elliptic curvatures was taken for modeling a variety of different silicon tip as well as ridge structures. Whereas, a high dependency of the field enhancement on the aperture angle was found, the simulations show that the elliptic curvature affects the field enhancement only marginal.
In order to improve the uniformity and field emission stability of p-type silicon tip arrays for pulsed sensor applications, we have systematically studied the influence of the fabrication parameters on the tip shape and the specific operating conditions. Based on detailed design calculations of the field enhancement, we have fabricated a series of hexagonal arrays of B-doped Si-tips in a triangular arrangement, each containing a different number of tips (91, 575 and 1300) of 1 μm height, 20 nm apex radius, and 20 μm pitch. The field emission properties of both individual tips and complete arrays were investigated with by field emission scanning microscopy. The current plateaus of these tips typically occur at about 10 nA and 60 V/μm field level. In this carrier depletion range, single tips provide the highest current stability (<; 4%) and optical current switching ratios of ~2.5. Rather homogeneous emission of the tip arrays leads to an almost linear scaling of the saturation current (2 nA/tip) and to a much improved current stability (<; 1%) measured over 1 hour.
We have fabricated a test chip with various hexagonal arrays of B-doped Si tips (height ~ 3 μm, apex radius <; 30 nm, number 1-4447, resistivity 4 Ωcm, 100 orientation) in triangular arrangement (pitch 10 μm, density 1.16×10 6 cm -2 ) in order to systematically investigate the field emission current scaling with the number N of tips. Regulated voltage scans for 1 nA revealed rather efficient emission from nearly all tips of the arrays at an average field of 15 V/μm. The expected current plateau was always obtained at fields around 20 V/μm, but its width strongly increased with N. In this carrier depletion range, the single tip provided a much higher stability (<; 5%) of the current (2-3 nA) than at lower (>; 50 %) and higher currents (>; 30%). Integral current measurements of the hexagonal arrays resulted in a statistically improved current stability (<; 1%) but only a weak increase of the total current with N 0.28 yet. These results will be discussed with respect to the remaining inhomogeneity of the tips.