Comparison of Lateral Field Emitter Characteristics for Titanium Silicide, Poly-Si, and Single Crystal Si Tip

We have fabricated poly-Si, Si, and Ti-silicide field emitter arrays employing in-situ vacuum encapsulated lateral field emitter structures and investigated the field emission characteristics such as turn-on voltage, emission current density, and the stability of emission current. Although poly-Si and Si emitter have almost identical turn-on voltages, Si emitter has a sharper turn-on than poly-Si emitter due to its uniform surface. The current densities of poly-Si, and Si emtter are 0.47, 0.43 μA/tip respectively at anode to cathode voltage of 90 V. The turn-on voltage and current density of Ti-silicide emitter are about 31 V, and 1.81 μA/tip at VAK of 90 V. The data of the normalized current fluctuations indicate that Ti-silicide emitter has the most stable current. Our experiment shows that Ti-silicide is most promising among these three materials due to its low work function, uniform surface, and the stable characteristics.