The fabrication and evaluation of diamond cold cathodes for field emitter display applications

Semiconducting diamond is a candidate wide-band gap material for applications in vacuum microelectronic devices. Its potential use in components that are operated at high frequencies, handle high powers or are subjected to extremes of temperature and radiation have yet to be commercially realised. The work presented below sets out to determine whether semiconducting diamond is a suitable material for such active electronic devices by examining the most efficient means of initiating electron emission from Chemical Vapour Deposited (CVD), semiconducting diamond. Novel methods are reported for the incorporation of impurity atoms of Nitrogen and Phosphorus into CVD diamond that employ ion-implantation techniques. Demonstration of the efficient incorporation of these impurities to form donor states with low activation energies into polycrystalline diamond would facilitate efficient room temperature operation of pn junctions devices. The effectiveness of boron as a p-type dopant in CVD diamond films has enabled the investigation of potential field emitter structures using different boron concentrations in order to identify their respective conduction mechanisms and to make a comparison of their relative electron emission performance. It has been concluded that efficient electron emission is observed to originate from the interface of n+-p, silicon/diamond heterojunctions that employ thin p-type regions which are less than 5μm thick. The emission current may be controlled by the application of a low voltage forward bias of less than 1 volt. Only the np junction containing 400 ppm of boron in the p-diamond layer demonstrated forward biased electron emission. It is proposed that carrier conduction across the junction interface involves recombination and tunnelling steps between interface trap states. Furthermore it is believed that due to the junction interface being in direct contact with vacuum, within this region of the emitter structure, a surface conduction emission mechanism may operate that facilitates the field emission of electrons from the p-diamond side of the interface into free space. A number of aspects relating to the junction structure could be considered to improve its performance as a cold cathode emitter: a p-diamond layer exhibiting a higher carrier mobility; a controlled number, distribution and type of defect residing at the interface; an emission surface conditioned to exhibit a stable Negative Electron Affinity (NEA). To more clearly define the operation of a diamond cold cathode emitter based upon this junction structure further exploratory effort would be required to be undertaken in the future. (author)