Simulation and Fabrication of Silicon Field Emission Cathodes for Cold Electron Sources

Abstract

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.