The effect of gate mesh electrode strain on performance of cold cathode electron beam

Abstract

The effect of an electron extraction electrode on electron emission was studied, in particular, the effect of the strain of a gate electrode for high-performance cold cathode electron beam fabrication. For the cold cathode electron beam with carbon nanotube emitters, the structure of a gate grid mesh electrode was one of the most important components. Gate current through the grid mesh was a serious hurdle to be overcome. When gate current is high, the electron emission current could be saturated, even if the gate bias is increased. To overcome this phenomenon, the structure of the gate electrode was optimized. By using a lower strain gate mesh structure with low-cost SUS304 material, we could reduce the gate current ratio from 17% to 8.4%. Finally, we could increase the electron emission current from 0.6 to 2.3 mA and current density from 40 to 202 mA cm−2, with a gate mesh with 77 μm strain in 1.5 N weight load.