Effects of the surface treatment of silicon substrate on the field emission characteristic of a silicon and amorphous diamond cold cathode emitter

摘要

Details arc given of an experimentalstudy of the effects of surface treatment ofsilicon substrate on the field emission process offiat amorphous diamond (a-D) film field emittersUsing a filtered cathodic vacuum arc plasmadeposition system (FCVAPD), the amorphous diamond(a-D)film was deposited on both non-treated andetched silicon wafers (n-type and p-type) Thefield electron emission characteristic wasmeasured before and after de film on etchedsilicon wafer shows distinct increase in emissioncurrent compared with that on non-treated siliconwafer. The phenomenon is attributed to twoimportant reasons the low or even negative surfaceelectron affinity of a-D film and the local fieldenhancement at the Si-diamond interface.