Uniform and stable emission characteristics for amorphous carbon coated transfer mold nickel field emitter arrays in hash environment

Uniform and stable Transfer Mold FEAs have been developed by coating amorphous carbon (a-C) films with high hardness and chemical inertness on Transfer Mold FEAs to realize uniform and stable field emission characteristics in hash environment such as strong plasma atmosphere in satellite orbits on the earth, field emission display manufacturing process, and so on (Nakamoto et al., 1993). Though turn-on fields of Ni-FEAs were increased 100% after O2 radical treatment, those of a-C coated on Ni-FEAs were increased less than 10%. The damage by 02 radical treatment was improved more than 90 % because of coating a-C as a protective layer on Ni-FEA.