Diamond cold cathode
AssigneeMassachusetts Institute of Technology
InventorMichael W. Geis
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Abstract
A cold cathode device is provided comprising a wide-bandgap (>5 eV) material exhibiting negative electron affinities, low trap densities, and high carrier mobilities, a junction between a first region of the wide-bandgap material having n-type conductivity and a second region of the wide-bandgap material having p-type conductivity, and a conductive contact to forward bias the junction causing electrons to be emitted near the junction into an exterior region.
Claims24
A cold cathode device comprising
- a wide-bandgap (>5 eV) material exhibiting negative electron affinities, low trap densities, and high carrier mobilities having a first region of n-type conductivity and a second region of p-type conductivity with a junction therebetween, and
- conductive contacts connected to said material for receiving a potential that forward biases said junction causing electrons to be emitted near said junction into an exterior region.
A cold cathode device consisting of a large band gap material n-type, semiconductor with a forward-biased junction from which semiconductor electrons are emitted by an electric field of less than 10.sup.6 V cm.sup.-1 in the space above the semiconductor surface.
Dependencies are inferred from the claim text.