PECASE: A Novel Approach for Controlled Fabrication of Micro-Gated Carbon Nanotube Field Emitter Arrays and Their Electrical Property Characterizations

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The high aspect ratio and small tip radius of curvature of carbon nanotubes (CNTs) make them especially suitable as sources for field emission. Recently, several reports have demonstrated that fabricating CNTs within micro-gated field emitter arrays (MG-FEAs) can reduce the required voltage and enable greater control over the emission current. The potential applications of gated CNT FEAs including flat panel displays, high frequency amplifiers, spacecraft propulsion systems, high voltage and high temperature electronics, portable x-ray sources, and multiple electron-beam lithography. The study of such triode-type CNT field emitters and emitter arrays, however, has been a less-publicized effort. The scarcity of reports on fabricating and characterizing micro-gated carbon nanotube field emitter arrays (MG-CNT-FEAs) is largely due to the complexity of making gated substrate arrays and the difficulty of controlling the growth of CNTs on the tops of substrate posts or on the bottoms of gated insulator-cell-arrays. Herein, we propose here a program of research that exploits a novel hybrid approach of using the focused ion beam (FIB) and chemical vapor deposition (CVD) to fabricate MG-CNT-FEAs with better control. This proposed research will permit, for the first time, a fully-dry-etching process for fabricating micro-array substrates. The proposed technique, if it is successfully developed, will not only eliminate tedious wet chemistry processes but also provide the flexibility to fabricate MG-CNT-FEAs with various configurations. The main objectives of the proposed research program are therefore to (1) develop MG-CNT-FEAs of various configurations using a combined FIB and CVD technique; (2) characterize the field emission behaviors of the fabricated MG-CNT-FEAs; (3) optimize the fabrication procedures to maximize the MG-CNT-FEAs performance; (4) improve the techniques for growing high quality carbon nanotubes; and (5) explore procedures for the large-scale manufacture of MG-CNT-FEAs while scaling down the size of their single components (unit cells). In addition, the program creates a unique opportunity for blending the educational experience of graduate, undergraduate, and selected high school students with state-of-the-art fabrication technology and cutting edge research. The results of this work will be disseminated through publications in refereed journals, conference presentations and will also be posted in the PI's world-wide-web home page.