Silicon Carbide Thin Film Deposited at Low Temperature by DC Magnetron Sputtering and Its Field Emission Property

The SiC thin Alms were successfully fabricated on P-type <100> oriented silicon substrates at comparatively low temperature via DC magnetron sputtering deposition using a sintered SiC target with DC power of 120 W. The deposition argon pressure was constantly at 2.0 Pa. The as-grown SiC films were characterized by using X-ray diffraction, atomic force microscope (AFM) and profilometer. The low turn-on field of about 4.5 V/mum obtained from the field-emission property measurement at an anode-sample separation of 200 mum shows that SiC films are competitive candidates for field-emission-based vacuum microelectronic devices.