Paper No 16.3: Low‐Operation Voltage, High Aspect Ratio, Position‐Controlled Transfer Mold Carbon Nanotube Field Emitter Arrays

Abstract

Low operation voltage, high aspect ratio, and position‐controlled Transfer Mold carbon nanotube (CNT) FEAs have been developed by the combination of the Transfer Mold FEAs and CNTs to realize highly efficient, reliable, and high performance displays. The Transfer Mold FEAs have the highest uniform and the most reliable field emission characteristics compared with the conventional FEAs such as CNT FEAs having the nonuniform and unstable emission characteristics, because the Transfer Mold FEAs can give the uniform emitter morphology and can decide the uniform emission sites. Moreover, if the nonuniform emission happens in a pixel, it is difficult to make uniform electron beam in a pixel even by using focusing electrode. However, the emission points of Transfer Mold FEAs are uniformly distributed in a pixel. Transfer Mold CNT FEAs can improve the emission characteristics by combining the Transfer Mold FEAs and CNTs, because Transfer Mold CNT FEAs have the higher aspect ratio than those of Transfer Mold FEAs. The turn‐on fields of Transfer Mold CNT FEAs and Transfer Mold Ni FEAs are 12.5 V/μm and 14.9 V/μm, respectively; these represent one of the lowest turn‐on voltages obtained to date. The turn‐on voltages are reduced by about 16% due to the high aspect ratio of Transfer Mold CNT FEAs. Both values of the turn‐on voltages, 12.5 and 14.9 V/µm, are lower than those of other conventional FEAs such as CNTs FEAs of 50−100 V/µm at the short distance less than 10 μm. Therefore, Transfer Mold CNT FEAs can operate at low voltages and are applicable for fabricating uniform and reliable FEDs and other vacuum nanoelectronic devices.