Field activated lateral-type polysilicon emitter with extremely high emission current and very low turn-on voltage

Abstract

A lateral-type poly-Si field emission device was fabricated by utilizing the local oxidation of silicon (LOCOS) process and a simple and efficient activation technique of the tip end was proposed to achieve a high emission current. The fabricated single field emitter exhibits excellent electrical characteristics such as a very low turn-on voltage of 2 V and an extremely high current of ∼500 μA at anode to cathode voltage of 30 V. These superior field emission characteristics are believed to be due to both an increased enhancement factor (β) by appropriate activation and originally sharpened tip by the LOCOS process.