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A compact vacuum-sealed field emission electron gun with an operation voltage below 5 kV is presented. With a 150 nm thick pyrolytic carbon membrane, a transmission of 40% at 5 kV is obtained. For more than 2500 h of continuous operation at an emission current of 100 nA, no significant increase (<50V ) and almost no degradation were found. From this measurement, a lifetime of more than 10 000 h at continuous operation with approximately a linear increase of the extraction voltage from about 545 V to about 730 V is predicted. This electron source enables application of field emitter arrays in poor vacuum or even ambient pressure.
ACKNOWLEDGMENT
This work was supported by the German Federal Ministry for Economic Affairs and Energy under Project No. ZF4081502GM8. C.P., R.L., M.H., and R.S. were supported by Grant No. ZF4562901GM8.
Influence of adsorbates on the performance of a field emitter array in a high voltage triode setup
(2017)
In the present work, black-silicon field emitter arrays (FEAs) are investigated regarding the influence of residual gas pressure on the characteristics and lifetime in the high voltage triode setup. Current-voltage-characteristics at different pressure levels are recorded and show a decreasing emission current with rising pressure. This decrease can be explained by an increase of the work function and charging of the emitter surface caused by adsorbates. The emission current can be restored to its initial value by heating of the FEA up to 110 °C during active emission. With this regeneration procedure, an extended lifetime from about 20 h to 440 h at a residual gas pressure of 10−5 mbar is achieved.
Extraction of the characteristics of current-limiting elements from field emission measurement data
(2017)
In this contribution, the authors will present an algorithm to extract the characteristics of nonideal field emission circuit elements from saturation-limited field emission measurement data. The method for calculating the voltage drop on current-limiting circuit elements is based on circuit theory as well as Newton's method. Since the only assumption the authors make on the current-limiting circuit is a connection in series, this method is applicable to most field emission data showing saturation. To be able to determine the significance of any parameter output, the uncertainties of data and extracted parameters as well as the parameter correlations are fully taken into account throughout the algorithm. N-type silicon samples with varying external serial resistors are analyzed. All results show a good agreement to the nominal resistor values. Additionally, several p-type samples are analyzed, showing a diodelike behavior. The extracted current-limiting characteristics of the p-type samples are in good agreement with a pn-junction model. The stability of the emission current of the p-type samples is measured by constant voltage measurements and compared to the extracted current-limiting characteristics. The application of the algorithm to measurement data shows that the given algorithm is a valuable tool to analyze field emission measurement data influenced by nonemissive processes.
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.
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%).
The measurement range of thermal conductivity vacuum gauges is mainly influenced by the sensitivity of the sensing element to variations in pressure. An enhanced definition of sensitivity shows its theoretical dependence on the geometric measures of the sensor element at the whole pressure range. This value gives the possibility of direct comparison between different types of sensor structures without the influence of the operating conditions. To study the influencing factors, sensor chips with heated surfaces in the order of some tens of mm 2 were realized by microelectromechanical systems-based fabrication techniques. By a silicon-glass hybrid process two cold planes were formed in a distance of 150 mu m above and below the heated element. The thermal conductance of devices with different geometric measures was determined in constant temperature operating mode by usage of embedded measurement equipment. In this configuration the sensor signals were sensitive to pressure in a region from 10(-5) mbar. The sensitivity was extracted by a fit of the theoretical model to the measurement data and showed the predicted dependencies on the geometric measures. (C) 2014 American Vacuum Society.
We report on the simulation and fabrication of nanostructured silicon surfaces for field emission (FE) applications, e.g. ionization sensors and x-ray tubes. For the design and optimization of field-emitting silicon structures, the influence of the geometric parameters like tip height, apex radius, aperture angle and curvature shape on the field enhancement factor was investigated by simulation using finite element method. A universal geometric model which describes the real geometry of our silicon structures sufficiently accurate was taken for modeling a variety of different silicon tip structures as well as ridge structures. While a high dependency of the field enhancement on the aspect ratio and the aperture angle was found, the simulations show that the elliptic curvature affects the field enhancement only marginally. Finally, an improved process for fabrication of such silicon structures on n-type as well as p-type substrate is described, using reactive ion etching with adjustable anisotropy, wet thermal oxidation and wet etching.
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.
Silicon-based cathodes with precisely aligned field emitter arrays of sharp tips applicable for miniaturized electron sources were successfully fabricated and characterized. This was made possible by an improved fabrication process using wet thermal oxidation, wet etching, and reactive-ion etching steps with adjustable anisotropy. As substrate materials, both p-doped silicon and n-doped silicon were used. The cathode chips contain about 3 × 10 5 Si tips/cm 2 in a triangular array with tip heights of 2.5 μm, tip radii of less than 30 nm, and spacing of 20 μm. Well-aligned field emission (FE) and excellent homogeneity from all tips (i.e., 100% efficiency) and maximum stable currents of typically 0.1 μA (0.6 μA) for p (n)-type Si were reproducibly achieved. The current-voltage characteristics of the p-Si tips exhibit the expected saturation at around 10 nA with around ten times better current stability, whereas the n-Si tips show the usual Fowler-Nordheim behavior. Additional coating of the Si tips with 5-nm Cr and 10-nm Au layers resulted in improved stability and at least five times higher average FE current limits (about 3 μA) at about 30% higher operation voltage.
We have constructed a new ultrahigh vacuum apparatus with a triode configuration for the systematic investigation of photo-induced field emission (PFE) from metallic or semiconducting cathodes. These are exposed to electric fields up to 400 MV∕m and laser irradiation by means of hole or mesh gates. Cathodes and gates are in situ exchangeable and adjustable with high precision to ensure a homogeneous extraction of electrons which are partially transmitted to the fixed electron spectrometer. Its hemispherical sector analyzer provides an energy resolution limit of 8 meV. The commissioning of the measurement system has been performed with a tungsten needle. Its temperature showed up in the high-energy tail of the electron spectrum, while its work function was derived from the spectral low-energy part combined with the integral current-voltage curve. First PFE measurements on B-doped Si-tip arrays yielded a small field emission current increase under green laser illumination. A shift and splitting of the energy spectra was observed which revealed different emission regimes as well as the photosensitivity of the cathode due to carrier excitation into the conduction band. For the full exploitation of the PFE system, a tunable laser over a wide eV-range is required.