Fabrication and properties of nitride field emitter.

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Field emitters of NbN,Nb_2N,TiN,and ZrN were fabricated by nitriding elemental metal needles. The nitriding was carried out by heating metal needles in an ammonia gas.Before operating the field emitters, they are flash heated for several seconds. Their field emission properties changed with the increase of the flashing temperature. At the beginning the current fluctuation was fundamentally step-and spike-like. However, it changed to random-like when flashed higher than a certain temperature where field emission patterns changed.The NbN emitters, which had been flash heated at 900ﾟC,showed the most stable field emission current among the nitride emitters examined here.It is revealed by using of AES (Auger Electron Spectroscopy) that the field emission properties are largely affected by the concentric components at the emitter surface. Deficiency of nitrogen degrades the emission properties very much and occurred due to a flash heating higher than a temperature where the change of the emission pattern was observed.It is concluded that the nitride emitters gave stable emission when flash heated at a relatively low temperature, suggesting that the deficiency of nitrogen at the emitter surface does the important role in the stable operation.