CURRENT LIMITER FOR FIELD EMISSION STRUCTURE

摘要

A current limiter for flat panel field emission display devices is disclosed. The current limiter includes a vertical resistor (22) and a lateral resistor (21) which in combination provide uniform emission and blow-out protection. The current limiter consists of two layers (21, 22) of different resistive materials. The resistivity for the top layer is determined by the emission current density requirement and the geometric configuration of the device, including emitter base and pitch dimensions, emitter density per array and the resistive film thickness. This top layer resistor conducts vertically and helps prevent emitters with slightly lower emission thresholds from delaying the turn-on of other emitters within a pixel. Intra-pixel individual emitter resistance is substantially controlled by the vertical resistive layer (22), while the blow-out resistance and inter-pixel uniformity is controlled primarily by the lateral resistive layer (21).