Study on the energy distribution of semiconductor emitters

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Cathodes with highly efficient and stable electron emission are required for vacuum microelectronics, which develops novel flat panel displays and multi-electron beam devices etc. A field emitter fabricated semiconductor technology is one of key devices of FED applications and as expected to be an electron source of a novel electron beam apparatus. Although the energy distribution of electron from the field emitter contains information of the emission mechanism, the energy distribution has not been studied so far. We have fabricated n-type and p-type Si field-emitter arrays and measured the energy distribution of the emitters. In n-type Si emitters, the energy distributions at different gate potentials have emission thresholds about 1 eV below the Fermi energy level. In the p-type, the thresholds are about 5 eV below the Fermi level and lower with increasing the gate potentials. Peaks and some of spectral features in both type emitters shift with gate voltage.