Fabrication and characterization of lateral poly-Si tetrode field-emitter arrays

The cathode-to-anode current-voltage behaviors of the lateral, micro-scale poly-Si/oxide/Si field emitter arrays were investigated. i) In the diode mode, the turn-on voltage of the 50-arrays was as low as 13 V due to the local field enhancement effect near the extremely sharp tip. The 50-arrays showed a high emission current of 180 μA at an apparent field strength of 4 MV/m. ii) In the triode mode, the strong and effective modulation of the anode currents by the 1st gate voltages was explained by the relatively steep change in the apparent electric fields. The 50-arrays maintained a transconductance of about 4 μS and a resistance of 0.33 MΩ under bias conditions of the V_AC=20 V, V_1GC=20 V, and V_2GC=open. iii) In the tetrode mode, two distinguishable behaviors of the anode current were observed at the gate voltages: the emission-limited and the extracting-limited current-voltage characteristics.