Selective growth of carbon nanotubes and their application to triode-type field emitter arrays

摘要

Triode-type field emitter arrays (FEAs) were fabricated using carbon nanotubes (CNTs) as electron emission sources. CNTs were selectively grown on the patterned Ni catalyst layer by microwave plasma-enhanced chemical vapor deposition (MPCVD) with a gas mixture of methane and hydrogen. Growth of multi-walled CNTs could be confirmed from TEM analysis and Raman spectroscopy. Although the gate electrodes were placed underneath the cathode electrodes, electron emission from CNT emitters could be easily modulated by gate voltage. The turn-on voltage was as low as 38 V and the anode current of 14 μA was extracted at the gate voltage of 55 V, which corresponds to the emission current density of 275 mA/cm~2. We expect that the triode-type CNT-FEAs with low driving voltage property and simple fabrication process may have strong potential for the future field emission display development.