Fabrication of gated cold cathode using standing thin film induced by ion-beam bombardment

We demonstrated high current field electron emission from a gated field electron emitter fabricated by the thin film standing technique which was induced by ion-beam bombardment and etch-back technique. The thin film material was tungsten disilicide. An emitter tip having a high aspect ratio was fabricated inside a gate aperture of 2 μm in diameter. The emission current of 10 μA was obtained from a single tip cathode at the gate voltage of 133.5 V. A multitip cathode composed of 1000 tips cathode showed a lower turn-on voltage (31 V) than that of the single tip (112 V), which indicated nonuniform distribution of the turn-on voltage.