Field-emission characterization of the 10Ã10 singly addressable double-gated polysilicon tip array

Polysilicon-on-insulator singly addressable arrays, consisting of double-gated field-emission cells, were fabricated and tested. The field-emission tips were formed by a subtractive technique, using an array of ten polysilicon stripes on the insulating substrate. The stripe structure was oxidized for dielectric isolation and coated with a second polysilicon layer as an extracting gate electrode. The polysilicon layer was then oxidized to provide a second isolation layer for separation from a top gold film, deposited as a focusing electrode. Finally, an 1.7 mm aperture was opened, using wet buffered etching of the silicon dioxide. The structure allows us to address electrically a single tip at the intersection of any cathode row and extracting gate column. A focusing voltage could be applied independently to the second gate of any tip during operation to focus the electron flux of an operating tip. The focused array may be suitable for multi-beam electron lithography application and new generation of data storage devices. © 2003 American Vacuum Society. @DOI: 10.1116/1.1527634#