Carbon nanotube field emitter arrays having an electron beam focusing structure

An electron beam focusing structure was incorporated into the gated field emitter arrays where the emitters were screen-printed carbon nanotubes. The focusing structure was comprised of 8-mum-thick bulky SiOx focus gate insulator and Cr focus gate, and exhibited negligible leakage between the gate and the focus gate. In current-voltage measurements, it is found that the anode current strongly depends on both the focus gate and the anode bias voltages. Electron beams were focused well at the anode with a slight overfocusing effect, which is due to the wide electron beam divergence from carbon nanotubes. A new focusing structure based on the simulation is proposed to overcome the overfocusing. (C) 2004 American Institute of Physics.