Low voltage phosphors for FEDs

The great strides that have been made recently in the development and understanding of electron emission from microtips have led to the recognition of a need for a new type of phosphor. Clearly, the potential of the improved microtips for field emission displays (FEDs) will be realised only if phosphors are available to convert the electrons released into useful light with correct colour gamut. Although phosphors with good efficiency (over 10%) and with full colour have been successfully developed for high voltage cathode tube and fluorescent application, such materials cannot be used without modification for efficient FEDs. We summarise results obtained in the 300-3000 V regions; most recently published data is confined to this regime. A summary of the present state-of-the-art is given