Silicon field emitter arrays (FEAs) with different tip sizes and quantities were fabricated by saw dicing and anisotropic wet chemical etching by tetramethylammonium hydroxide. The tip is formed by the different etching rates of the crystal facets leading to a sharp pyramid based on {103} planes on the top and a hexadecagon based on {331} and {221} planes on the bottom. Electrical measurements at 10−5 mbar up to 10 μA show good reproducibility for FEAs with the same process parameters and higher uniformity and stability with an increasing number of tips. Constant current measurements at the same conditions and 10 μA show a mean electric field increase of about 0.06(3) V/(μm h) for p-type FEAs with a tip quantity of 3600. The shift increases with lower tip quantity and is higher for n-type FEAs compared to p-type. The degradation during the constant current measurement of n-type samples is found to be partly reversible by heating to 200 °C during emission. In contrast, heating of p-type FEAs induced further degradation instead of a regeneration effect.
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January 2021
Research Article|
January 26 2021
Silicon field emitters fabricated by dicing-saw and wet-chemical-etching
Simon Edler
;
Simon Edler
a)
1
Institute of Physics, Faculty of Electrical Engineering and Information Technology, Universität der Bundeswehr München
, 85577 Neubiberg, Germany
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Andreas Schels;
Andreas Schels
1
Institute of Physics, Faculty of Electrical Engineering and Information Technology, Universität der Bundeswehr München
, 85577 Neubiberg, Germany
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Josef Biba;
Josef Biba
1
Institute of Physics, Faculty of Electrical Engineering and Information Technology, Universität der Bundeswehr München
, 85577 Neubiberg, Germany
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Walter Hansch;
Walter Hansch
1
Institute of Physics, Faculty of Electrical Engineering and Information Technology, Universität der Bundeswehr München
, 85577 Neubiberg, Germany
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Michael Bachmann;
Michael Bachmann
2
Ketek GmbH
, 81737 Munich, Germany
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Felix Düsberg;
Felix Düsberg
2
Ketek GmbH
, 81737 Munich, Germany
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Marinus Werber;
Marinus Werber
2
Ketek GmbH
, 81737 Munich, Germany
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Christoph Langer
;
Christoph Langer
2
Ketek GmbH
, 81737 Munich, Germany
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Manuel Meyer;
Manuel Meyer
2
Ketek GmbH
, 81737 Munich, Germany
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David von Bergen;
David von Bergen
2
Ketek GmbH
, 81737 Munich, Germany
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Andreas Pahlke
Andreas Pahlke
2
Ketek GmbH
, 81737 Munich, Germany
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a)
Electronic mail: simon.edler@ketek.net
Note: This paper is part of the Special Collection: Papers from the 33rd International Vacuum Nanoelectronics Conference (33rd IVNC 2020).
J. Vac. Sci. Technol. B 39, 013205 (2021)
Article history
Received:
July 18 2020
Accepted:
December 22 2020
Connected Content
Citation
Simon Edler, Andreas Schels, Josef Biba, Walter Hansch, Michael Bachmann, Felix Düsberg, Marinus Werber, Christoph Langer, Manuel Meyer, David von Bergen, Andreas Pahlke; Silicon field emitters fabricated by dicing-saw and wet-chemical-etching. J. Vac. Sci. Technol. B 1 January 2021; 39 (1): 013205. https://doi.org/10.1116/6.0000466
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