P. Serbun

Homogeneous Field Emission Cathodes With Precisely Adjustable Geometry Fabricated by Silicon Technology

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 × 105 Si tips/cm2 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.

Stable field emission of single B-doped Si tips and linear current scaling of uniform tip arrays for integrated vacuum microelectronic devices

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...

Field emission properties of p-type black silicon on pillar structures

Arrays of black silicon field emission pillar structures were fabricated on p-type silicon substrates. Two types of samples with the same number of pillars (arrays of 10 × 10) but different pillar heights (8 and 20 μm) were prepared as well as a black silicon reference sample without pillars. The field emission properties of these cathodes were investigated both by means of integral current-voltage measurements and by field emission scanning microscopy. Samples with a pillar height of 20 μm revealed onset fields as low as 6.4 V/μm, field enhancement factors up to 800, and emission currents up to 8 μA at an applied field of 20 V/μm. Due to the p-type material, a saturation of the emission current for fields above 11 V/μm was observed. This saturation leads to a stable operation with a current fluctuation of less than ±8%. It was found that samples with a pillar height of 20 μm showed improved emission characteristics compared to samples with a pillar height of 8 μm or without pillars. The voltage maps reve...

Semiconductor field emission electron sources using a modular system concept for application in sensors and x-ray-sources

Semiconductor field emitters are suitable candidates for applications, which require a very stable field emission (FE) current and a high emission uniformity over the entire emission area. By using different materials and geometries, we are able to vary the FE characteristics within a wide range. Each specific application requires its own optimized design for the cathode as well as for the other parts of the FE electron source. To meet as many of these requirements as possible while using only a limited number of different prefabricated components, we established a modular system concept for our FE electron source. This allows the implementation of almost every cathode material. For first characterizations, we used gated p-type Si cathodes with 16 tips. We obtained stable FE currents of 0.4 μA for a grid-potential of 400 V and a gate potential of 100 V. Almost 100% of the electrons are emitted towards the grid-electrode. Parasitic leakage paths, as well as the electron emission towards the gate-electrode can be neglected. Approximately 10% of the electrons are transmitted through the grid and reach the external anode. This is in good agreement with the optical transmission through the grid-mesh.

High aspect ratio silicon tip cathodes for application in field emission electron sources

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.

Extraction of the characteristics of current-limiting elements from field emission measurement data

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 Newtons 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 ag...

Enhanced field emission from p-doped black silicon on pillar structures

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.

Field emission from surface textured extraction facets of GaN light emitting diodes

We report on the field emission properties of GaN LED surfaces. The textured extraction facet acts both as light scattering layer in order to increase the light extraction efficiency of the LED as well as nanostructured cathode surface for the field emission (FE) of electrons. The LED emits blue light with a peak wavelength of around 450 nm. The FE properties were investigated by a scanning microscope. Integral measurements as well as regulated voltage scans for 1 nA FE current over an area of 400 × 400 μm2 were used to investigate both overall and local FE properties. A high number of well-distributed emitters with an average field enhancement factor β of 85 and stable integral emission currents up to 100 μA at an electric field of ~ 80 V/μm (Øanode = 880 μm) were found. Photo-field-emission spectroscopy (PFES) using a tunable pulsed laser revealed an enhanced photo absorption of the InGaN/GaN quantum well structures near the emission wavelength of the LED (<;3.5 eV), whereas at high photon energies (>4.1 eV) photoemission from the GaN surface was observed.

Photosensitivity of electron field emission from B-doped Si-tip arrays

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.

Highly uniform and stable electron field emission from B-doped Si-tip arrays for applications in integrated vacuum microelectronic devices

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.