A new cathode for the vacuum microelectronic devices-Silicon Tip Avalanche Cathode (STAC) has been developed. A STAC is a silicon field emitter with a shallow n/sup +/-p/sup +/ junction formed on the tip. It has been demonstrated that the extraction voltage required to produce 0.1 /spl mu/A per tip is reduced from 97 V to 72 V as the reverse bias applied to the n/sup +/-p/sup +/ junction is increased from 0 V to 35 V. Also a new model based on the field emission from the surface states is proposed and used to explain the emission current enhancement of STAC.
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