FABRICATION AND STRUCTURE OF ELECTRON EMITTERS COATED WITH MATERIAL SUCH AS CARBON

摘要

A cathode structure (200, 203, 204) suitable for a flat panel display is provided with coated emitters (229, 239, 230). The emitters are formed with material, typically nickel, capable of growing to a high aspect ration. These emitters are then coated with carbon containing material (240, 241) for improving the chemical robustness and reducing the work function. One coating process is a DC plasma deposition process in which acetylene is pumped through a DC plasma reactor (301, 305, 313, and 315) to create a DC plasma for coating the cathode structure. An alternative coating process is to electrically deposit raw carbon-based material onto the surface of the emitters, and subsequently reduce the raw carbon-based material to the carbon containing material. Work function of coated emitters is typically reduced by about 0.8 to 1.0 eV.