Porous silicon field emission cathode development

This paper will address the development of a porous silicon cathode technology which shows promise in solving the existing problems, specifically the unstable, low current density, non-reproducible and high voltage emission, encountered by other cathode technologies. Monolithic two- and three-terminal devices have been designed, manufactured, and characterized. All of these devices have resulted in stable, reproducible operating characteristics that follow the Fowler-Nordheim model. Vacuum transport of the electrons and temperature independence (to 250/spl deg/C) of the I-V characteristics have been confirmed. Appreciable emission current has been observed with macroscopic fields on the order of 10/sup 4/ V/cm, thus indicating a large submicroscopic field enhancement due to the geometrical nature of the porous silicon.