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We have investigated the properties of black Si field emitter arrays under strong electric fields and laser illumination. A low onset field of 1.8 MV/m for an emission current of 1 nA was obtained. A pronounced saturation region of the dark and photo-enhanced current was observed, which provided a short-term stability of 0.1% at 0.4 μA and 0.7% at 1.0 μA, respectively. As maximum value for the photosensitivity, an on-off current switching ratio of 43 reaching about 13 μA was achieved at a laser power of 15 mW. Electron spectra in the dark and under laser illumination are presented, showing a current and light-sensitive voltage drop across the emitters as well as hints for hot electron emission.
Recently a non-radioactive electron capture detector based on a thermionic electron emitter has been demonstrated [1]. Using field emitter arrays (FEAs) would yield non-radioactive portable low power devices with fast switching capability. By combining FEAs with a vacuum-sealed housing and an electron transparent membrane window, such electron sources can be operated in an ambient pressure environment.
The homogeneity of emitters is very important for the performance of field emission (FE) devices. Reactive-ion etching (RIE) and oxidation have significant influences on the geometry of silicon tips. The RIE influences mainly the anisotropy of the emitters. Pressure has a strong impact on the anisotropic factor. Reducing the pressure results in a higher anisotropy, but the etch rate is also lower. A longer time of etching compensates this effect. Furthermore an improvement of homogeneity was observed. The impact of uprating is quite low for the anisotropic factor, but significant for the homogeneity. At low power the height and undercut of the emitters are more constant over the whole wafer. The oxidation itself is very homogeneous and has no observable effect on further variation of the homogeneity. This modified fabrication process allows solving the problem of inhomogeneity of previous field emission arrays.
Precisely aligned arrays of sharp tip structures on top of elongated pillars were realized by using an improved fabrication process including an additional inductively-coupled-plasma reactive-ion etching step. Arrays of n-type and p-type silicon with 271 tips have been fabricated and investigated. Those structures have a total height of 5–6 µm and apex radii less than 20nm. Integral field emission measurements of the arrays yielded low onset-fields in the range of 8–12V=µm and field enhancement factors between 300 and 700. The I-E curves of n-type structures showed the usual Fowler-Nordheim behaviour, whereas p-type structures revealed a significant saturation region due to the limited number of electrons in the conduction band and a further carrier depletion effect caused by the pillar. The maximum integral current in the saturation region was 150 nA at fields above 30V=µm. An excellent stability of the emission current of less than ± 2% fluctuation was observed in the saturation region. For n-type Si a maximum integral current of 10 µA at 24V=µm and an average current stability with a fluctuation of ± 50% were measured.
We have carried out systematic investigations of p-type black Si field emitter arrays under laser illumination. As expected the current-voltage characteristic revealed a strong saturation providing a high photosensitivity, which had a maximum on-off ratio of 43 at a maximum current of 13 μA. The saturation current was stable in the dark as well as under illumination with fluctuations <;0.7%. Results from time-resolved measurements of the photo-sensitivity showed a rather fast response but a long decay time. Electron spectra in the dark and under laser illumination revealed the origin of the emission.
An in-situ fabrication technique based on ion track etched template electrodeposition of metallic nanocones was used for the production of field emitter cathodes. Gold nanocones with a height of 24 microns, a base diameter between 3 to 4 microns and a tip diameter below 300 nanometers were deposited on a circular electrode with a diameter of 2.5 mm. The integral field emission (FE) measurements of samples with cone densities of 6 · 104 cones/cm2 (sample A) and 1 · 106 cones/cm2 (sample B) yielded in a maximum current of 37.5 μA at an applied field of 12.5 V/μm for sample A and 29.1 μA at 9.4 V/μm for sample B. The stability of emission current was investigated for over 48 hours and no degradation was observed.
Silicon tip arrays were fabricated by means of reactive ion etching followed by oxidation for final sharpening and molybdenum thin film coating. The field-emission (FE) properties of these Mo-coated p-Si tip arrays were systemically investigated by different measurement techniques. Integral measurements in diode configuration yielded a turn-on field (for 1 nA) of 22 V/μm and nearly stable FE currents up to 6.6 μA at 38 V/μm. The effective field enhancements factor extracted from the FN plots is about 180. Detailed investigations of these FE arrays were also performed by means of field emission scanning microscopy combined with electron microscopy. A rather limited efficiency of the tips (50% at 1500 V) and FE homogeneity (180 nA at 700 V) might be correlated with the varying morphology of the tips and the presence of oxides. Local I-V measurements of selected single tips revealed both activation and deactivation effects, which finally resulted in nearly reproducible I-V curves. Current stability measurements at a constant voltage showed rather large fluctuations (0.1-1 μA) of the FE current, which could be reduced up to 1.7% by using of a PID-regulated voltage source. SEM images showed unchanged tip shape after the current processing.
Advanced Si-based semiconductor technology is most suitable to fabricate uniform nanostructures as integrated field emitter arrays for novel vacuum electronic devices. In order to improve the field emission homogeneity and stability of p-type silicon tip arrays for pulsed sensor applications, the authors have systematically studied the influence of the fabrication parameters on the tip shape and on the specific operating conditions. Based on detailed design calculations of the field enhancement, they have fabricated two series of hexagonal arrays of B-doped Si-tips in a triangular arrangement. The first (second) type contains three (four) patches with different number of tips (1, 91, 547 and 1, 19, 1027, 4447 for the first and second type, respectively) of about 1 (2.5) μm height, ∼20 (20) nm apex radius, and 20 (10) μm pitch. The field emission properties of both individual tips and complete arrays were investigated with a field emission scanning microscope at a pressure of 10−9 mbar. The current plateau of these tips typically occurs at about 10 (3) nA and around 65 (25) V/μm field level. In this carrier saturation range, single tips provide the highest current stability (<5%) and optical current switching ratio (∼2.5). Fairly homogeneous emission of the tip arrays leads to an undershooting of the expected linear scaling of the mean plateau current as well as to a much improved current stability (<1%).
In this contribution we report on field emission (FE) cathodes based on thin-film LED-technology and surface texturing. The FE cathode can be used both as an n-GaN cathode with an electrical contact at the top side metallization as well as a pn-GaN diode contacting only the p-GaN layer at the bottom side of the structure. The local and integral FE properties of the textured surface of the LED structure were investigated. For n-GaN an integral emission current up to 1.0 μA at an electric field of 19 V/μm was achieved. The pn-GaN diode measurements showed an integral current saturation behavior with two orders of magnitude lower FE currents. Regulated voltage scans obtained by FE scanning microscopy revealed a well-distributed emission over the whole cathode area. Measurements under pulsed tunable laser illumination and moderate electric fields indicated charge carrier generation in the buried double-heterostructures at photon energies below 3.5 eV besides normal photoemission above 4.1 eV.
Aligned square arrays of black silicon (b-Si) on top of pillars were fabricated on p-type silicon substrate by a deep-etching step combined with a b-Si process. Two 10×10 arrays with pillar heights of 8 μm and 20 μm and one b-Si reference sample without pillars were investigated. Integral field emission (FE) measurements of the arrays yielded rather low onset-fields between 6.4 V/μm and 13.5 V/μm and field enhancement factors between 430 and 800. The I-V curves showed typical Fowler-Nordheim behavior for low fields, whereas a saturation region was observed at higher fields. The maximum integral current in the saturation region was 8 μA at a field of 20 V/μm. The stability of the emission current was investigated over 3 hours and revealed moderate fluctuations of ± 8% in the saturation region. Voltage scans showed well-aligned FE from nearly all pillars.