Flat Panel Light Source with Lateral Gate Structure Based on SiC Nanowire Field Emitters

A field-emission light source with high luminance, excellent luminance uniformity, and tunable luminance characteristics with a novel lateral-gate structure is demonstrated. The lateral-gate triode structure comprises SiC nanowire emitters on a Ag cathode electrode and a pair of Ag gate electrodes placed laterally on both sides of the cathode. The simple and cost-effective screen printing technique is employed to pattern the lateral-gates and cathode structure on soda lime glass. The area coverage of the screen-printed cathode and gates on the glass substrate (area: 6 × 8 cm(2)) is in the range of 2.04% - 4.74% depending on the set of cathode-gate electrodes on the substrate. The lateral-gate structure with its small area coverage exhibits a two-dimensional luminance pattern with high brightness and good luminance uniformity. A maximum luminance of 10,952 cd/cm(2) and a luminance uniformity of >90% can be achieved with a gate voltage of 500 V and an anode voltage of 4000 V, with an anode current of 1.44 mA and current leakage to the gate from the cathode of about 10%.