Comparative study of gated single crystal silicon and polysilicon field emitters

Both single crystal silicon and polysilicon are attractive emitter materials for displays using cold field emission. Although single crystal silicon has been under investigation for some time, by contrast, interest in polysilicon is more recent. Using state of the art fabrication techniques including high resolution electron beam lithography and plasma dry etch both single crystal silicon and polysilicon have been processed to fabricate sharp and uniform gated emitter arrays. We report in this article a comparative study of material aspects, processing, and emission properties of the two materials. (C) 1997 American Vacuum Society.