The drastic changes in the electrical properties of doped hydrogenated amorphous silicon as a resistive layer material during vacuum packaging processes in field emission display

Abstract

Summary form only given. The integration of a resistive layer into the field emitter array has been a gigantic step in bringing such an emitter array into the area of electron sources used in displays (Ghis et al, 1991; Levine, 1996; baptist et al, 1997). When the resistive layer is integrated into an FED, the vacuum packaging process, where the face plate and base plate are aligned and sealed together to evacuate the inner volume, is of utmost concern due to the high process temperature. The field emission characteristics of a 10/spl times/10 FEA with 1% PH/sub 3/ doped a-Si:H as resistive layer were measured both before and after annealing at 470/spl deg/C for 30 min in Ar ambient. The gate voltage for emission current of 10 nA per tip increased from 70 V to 93 V. Together with the fact that there is little change in field emission characteristics of FEA without resistive layer during the vacuum packaging process (Jung et al, 1999), the drastic change in current-voltage behavior of the resistive layer suggests that a change in emission characteristics during vacuum packaging process may be caused by an increase in a-Si:H resistivity.