Aspects of field emission from silicon diode arrays

The authors studied the field emission of arrays of lithographically fabricated silicon tips both by electrical characterization and by direct imaging of the spatial emission pattern. The authors describe experiments and analyses which support the supposition that the emitting tips are simply those...

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Bibliographic Details
Published inIEEE transactions on electron devices Vol. 38; no. 10; pp. 2323 - 2328
Main Authors Harvey, R.J., Lee, R.A., Miller, A.J., Wigmore, J.K.
Format Journal Article
LanguageEnglish
Published IEEE 01.10.1991
Subjects
Cathodes
Computer aided software engineering
Current density
Dry etching
Field emitter arrays
Lattices
Physics
Pollution measurement
Semiconductor diodes
Silicon
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Summary:The authors studied the field emission of arrays of lithographically fabricated silicon tips both by electrical characterization and by direct imaging of the spatial emission pattern. The authors describe experiments and analyses which support the supposition that the emitting tips are simply those which have the smallest values out of a Poisson distribution of tip radii created by the etching process. Many samples give rise to Fowler-Nordheim plots which consist of two distinct regions with different slopes. A model of this behavior is proposed in terms of a random distribution of tip radii, truncated on the low side by melting or surface reconstruction. The model also explains why so few tips in an array actually contribute.< >
Bibliography:ObjectType-Article-2
SourceType-Scholarly Journals-1
ObjectType-Feature-1
content type line 23
ISSN:0018-9383
1557-9646
DOI:10.1109/16.88519