A STUDY OF FIELD-EMISSION MICROTRIODES

Structures simulating integrated field emission microtriodes have been successfully fabricated and tested. These microtriodes use Spindt-type molybdenum field emission cathodes [1] with the anodes in three different configurations. The anodes are located at d > 5 mm, almost-equal-to 1.25 mm, and almost-equal-to 2-20-mu-m from the gate electrode and the emitter tip. In this paper, the effects of device operation on the performance of the Mo field emission tips operating in close proximity to anodes will be presented. A transconductance of 0.5 mS (5-mu-S/tip or 12 S/cm2) and cutoff frequency of 0.8 MHz has been measured. Extension of these results indicates that transconductances of 250 mS/mm and cutoff frequencies of 100 GHz may be possible.