Field emission device cathode and method of fabrication

Abstract

A field emission device cathode (10) may be fabricated by forming a dielectric layer (14) on an upper surface of a resistive layer (12). A gate layer (16) is formed on the dielectric layer (14). An opening is formed in the gate layer (16) and a microtip cavity (18) is formed in the dielectric layer (14). The microtip cavity (18) extends through the opening in the gate layer (16) to the resistive layer (12). A conductive layer is formed on the gate layer (16) and the resistive layer (12) within the microtip cavity (18) to form a conductive opening layer (20) on the gate layer (16) and a microtip cavity layer (22) on the resistive layer (12). A nonrefractory metal layer is formed on the conductive opening layer (20) and the microtip cavity layer (22) to form a nonrefractory layer (26) on the conductive opening layer (20) and to form a microtip metal nonrefractory base layer (24) on the microtip cavity layer (22) such that the microtip metal nonrefractory base layer (24) serves as the base layer for a microtip (28) within the microtip cavity (18). A microtip metal refractory tip layer (30) is formed on the microtip metal nonrefractory base layer (24) to serve as the tip of the microtip (28). Finally, polishing is performed to remove a portion of the layers on the gate layer (16). The polishing continues until the microtip (28) is exposed.

Dependencies are inferred from the claim text.