Vacuum micro-electronics devices based on field emission cathode have become the focus of people around the world because it has lots of advantages such as high-speed electron transmission

low power consumption

high current density

operating without heating and so on. Field emission array (FEA) is the most important part of the vacuum micro-electronics device. In order to improve the performance of the FEA devices

many new structures have been designed and the fabrication of FEA has been optimized constantly. Filmed-array is a novel approach that includes not only the advantages of the array but also the characters of the film materials. It is considered to be an effective method to improve the performance of the devices. Filmed-array is fabricated by coating additional thin films on the tip of prepared spindt arrays. If the film material chosen has low work function

high conductance and reliability

good emission can be gained. The choosing principle of the film materials includes work function

conductance

density and reliability. Being a good thermal emission material

lanthanum hexaboride(LaB

6

) has excellent characteristics and is propitious to the film. The fabrication of LaB

6

-coated silicon spindt field emission arrays is reported in this paper

in which standard semiconductor techniques including oxidation

photolithogragh

dry etching

oxidation sharpening on the n-type silicon were used. In our fabricated silicon spindt arrays

the height is about 1μm. Interval between each silicon spindt is 6 μm

and cutting-edge radius of curvature is about 50 nm

tip-angle is about 56 degrees

the density of arrays is about 10

6

/cm

2

. Then

the LaB

6

film is deposited on the silicon spindt by electron beam evaporation to reduce the work function and enhance the capability of resisting ion bombardment. Film thickness is about 50 nm

the radius of curvature is about 111 nm.The X-ray Diffraction (XRD) analysis results indicates LaB

6

with well crystallization was gained by electron beam evaporation

In interplanar 〈100〉

films make preferred growth.

I-V

characteristics and stability of field emission of silicon array and LaB

6

filmed-arrays have been studied. The results show that silicon array coated by LaB

6

film has good and stable emission characteristics. The total field emission current from the LaB

6

filmed-arrays reached to 125 μA

which is 125 times than pure silicon spindt arrays. The results indicated LaB

6

filmed-arrays is the kind of ideal field emission arrays.