Emission characteristics of silicon field emitter arrays fabricated by spin-on-glass etch-back process

The fabrication process and emission characteristics of silicon field emitter arrays (FEAs) for flat panel display are described. FEAs have been fabricated by a novel method which consists of two-step tip etch and spin-on-glass (SOG) etch-back processes using double layered thermal/tetraethylorthosilicate (TEOS) oxides as a gate dielectric. A small gate aperture with low gate leakage current could be fabricated with the process. The anode emission current measured from the 1024 tips array was about 300 /spl mu/A (292 nA/tip) at a gate voltage of 70 V and the turn-on voltage was 49 V.