Novel Nanofabricated Mo Field-Emitter Array for Low-Cost and Large-Area Application

This paper demonstrates a novel nanofabrication technology for producing high-density gated molybdenum (Mo) field-emitter array (FEA) based on modified nanosphere lithography (NSL). The arc-shaped side wall of gate apertures introduced by the conventional NSL process put obstacles in the formation of sharp cone-type emitters. In this paper, a two-method solution was employed to facilitate the realization of gate apertures with sharper cutting side wall which are beneficial for the formation of sharper gated Mo emitters. One method was softening nanosphere to enlarge the contact area between nanosphere and substrate. The other was optimizing gate film deposition conditions to dramatically reduce the diffraction effects. Due to the improvements in the geometrical shape of gated Mo emitters, a low-voltage working high-density gated Mo FEA was demonstrated in this paper. This is the first observation of remarkable electron emission from high-density gated Mo FEA fabricated using such as low-cost, high-throughput, and high-efficiency technique which is expected to substantially overcome the challenges in the traditional fabrication process and promotes the low-cost and large-area application of high-density gated field-emitter devices. In addition, the novel nanofabricating method is expected to offer a simple and scalable route which allows fabrication of many gated field-emission devices.