Investigation of various metal silicide field emitters and their application to field emission display

Silicidation of tip surface of gated poly-Si field emitters was carried out to improve the electron emission behavior. Mo, Co, and Ti layers with a thickness of 25 nm were deposited through the gate opening using directional electron beam evaporation. Silicide layers were formed by subsequent rapid thermal annealing under N-2 environment. Compared with emission characteristics of poly-Si emitters, those of Mo- and Co-silicided poly-Si (polycide) emitters showed enhanced electron emission efficiency, that is, lower turn-on voltage and higher emission current. On the other hand, the emission characteristics of Ti-polycide emitters were remarkably degraded, which was due to the oxide formation on tip surface. A strong oxygen peak on the Ti-silicided surface was found from the spectrums of XPS and SIMS, indicating oxidation or oxygen-related contamination. A field emission display prototype with 25 x 25 pixels was successfully demonstrated using Mo- polycide emitter arrays. The prototype adopting low voltage anode scheme of ZnO:Zn phosphor produced maximum brightness of 70 cd/m(2) at an anode voltage of 200 V. (C) 2002 The Electrochemical Society.