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Forschung 2018
(2018)
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.
An electron source with an array of individually controllable single tips allows the observation of each emitter current simultaneously as well as the measurement of the integral current. Furthermore, the initial activation process of the individual tips and current distribution of the source can be examined. The Si cathode consists of an array of 2 x 2 conically shaped emitter structures on a borosilicate glass substrate. The emitters were fabricated by laser micromachining and wet etching. Integral field emission (FE) measurements were performed in a diode configuration in a vacuum chamber at pressures of about 10(-9) mbar with a self-aligned Si extraction grid, due to adjustment pins. The total emission current was regulated to a predefined value (4.0, 10, 20, 40, and 50 mu A) by an external regulating circuit and recorded individually during the measurement. The onset voltage for a current of 1 nA varied between 320 and 430 V. The voltage conversion factor is in the range of 7.6 x 10(4) cm(-1) to 1.3 x 10(5) cm(-1). Constant currentmeasurementsover a longer periodof time (1800 values with a sample rate of 0.5 Hz) were performed and show a total current fluctuation less than 0.6% due to the regulation circuit. Despite the stable total current in regulated operation, it was observed that the individual emitters fluctuate up to 75% for low (similar to 10(-8) A) and 5% for high (similar to 10(-5) A) currents.
The components for a silicon chip electron source were fabricated by laser micromachining using pulsed laser ablation and wet chemical cleaning and etching dips. The field emission electron source consists of a silicon field emission cathode with 4 × 4 conical shaped emitters with a height of 250 μm and a tip radius of about 50 nm, a 50 μm thick laser-structured mica spacer, and a silicon grid electrode with a grid periodicity of 200 μm and a bar width of 50 μm. These three components are combined to a single chip with the size of 14 × 10 mm2 and the thickness of 1 mm to form the electron source. Several of these devices were characterized in ultrahigh vacuum. Onset voltages of about 165 V and cathode currents of about 15 μA for voltages lower than 350 V were observed. Operating the electron source with an anode voltage of 500 V and an extraction grid voltage of 300 V yielded a cathode current of 4.5 μA ± 8.9%, an anode current of 4.0 μA ± 9.6%, and a corresponding grid transmittance of 89%. Regulating the anode current by the extraction grid voltage, an extremely stable anode current of 5.0 μA ± 0.017% was observed. A long-term measurement over 120 h was performed, and no significant degradation or failure was observed.
ensely packed emitters on a field emission array lead typically to mutual shielding. Taking biology as a role model for geometric arrangements could be a way to reduce this effect. For comparison, two electron sources, one with a spiral and a second with conventional rectangular (orthogonal) arranged emitters, were fabricated and investigated. Emission currents of 6 µA in the spiral ordered array and 120 µA in the rectangular array were reached with an extraction voltage of 400 V. From a mid-term measurement over 1 h a current stability of ±8.8 % (spiral) respectively ±5.7 % (rectangular) with a mean degradation of -3.0 µA/h (spiral) and -0.12 µA/h (rectangular) could be observed.
A cathode with individually addressable Si tips allows the observation of the activation procedure and emission behaviour of each field emission emitter at any time of the measurement. The cathode consists of an array of 2x2 conically shaped emitter structures, which were fabricated by laser micromachining and wet etching of a Si substrate bonded on a glass carrier. Using the same process, a Si extractions grid was fabricated and mounted onto the emitter. Integral field emission measurements were performed in a diode configuration in a vacuum chamber at pressures of about 10- 9 mbar. The emitters show an onset voltage between 200 V and 300 V. The emission current for each emitter on the cathode was regulated to a given value (1.0 μA, 2.5μA, 5.0μA) by an external regulating circuit and was recorded individually during the measurement. With such approach, the relation between the emission behaviour and the geometry of emitters can be studied in detail. In addition, the current stabilization of each emitters of an array can be investigated, which led to a current stability of better than 0.5%.
We investigated two different field emitter arrays consisting of 10×10 p-type and 10×10 undoped Au-coated high aspect ratio silicon tips. The I-V characterization of the p-type sample showed a pronounced saturation for voltages higher than 500 V and a maximum emission current of 39 nA. The metallized sample revealed a FN-like emission up to several μA. The metallized and the p-type sample operating below the saturation region showed high current fluctuations of ±16%. Whereas, the metallized sample with current regulation and the p-type sample in the saturation yielded a current stability of ±0.4% and ±0.3%, respectively. Investigations in the frequency domain revealed the for field emission typical 1/f-noise. By operating in the saturation region (p-type sample) or using an emission current regulation (metallized sample) the noise level was reduced by at least 20 dB. Finally, the p-type sample was illuminated by a light emitting diode to increase and modulate the emission current in the saturation region. The emission current was increased by a factor of 3.7 to 145 nA. With this configuration we emulated an unstable emission behavior and evaluated the performance of our emission current regulation circuit.
The article presents a fabrication process and characterization of silicon emitters designed for MEMS X-ray source. The emitters, made of p-type and n-type silicon, were prepared by a modified laser micromachining process. Both types of emitters worked without any carbon nanotube coverage, which was the case in the previous realization of electron emitters. The p-type emitter gave smaller electron beam currents (<50 nA) with stable emission in a saturation region. The n-type emitter provides higher emission currents (>1 µA) not limited by saturation region, but with higher fluctuations. The final choice of emitter will be adjusted for different applications.
Four individually controllable emission tips consisting of <111> p-Type silicon, were structured on a glass substrate by laser ablation. A matching extraction grid was manufactured in the same manner and aligned with the emitters. The resulting samples were characterized in ultra-high vacuum. As expected, the individual currents show a strong saturation and in the saturation region a considerably lower current fluctuation than n-type silicon due to charge carrier depletion. The individual tips behave completely independent behaviour from each other and the overall emission can be deduced from the sum of the currents through the individual tips.