Field emission characteristics of single crystal LaB₆field emitters fabricated by electrochemical etching method

Abstract

Single crystal lanthanum hexaboride (LaB6) field emission arrays with uniform tip structures have been achieved using the electrochemical etching method and the field emission characteristics are evaluated. A direct current voltage source is introduced in the etching process and phosphoric acid is used as the electrolyte solution. The SEM observation of the emitters reflects the feasibility of the electrochemical etching method for the fabrication of single crystal LaB6 FEA. The turn-on field of LaB6 FEA is low at 3.2 Vµm−1 and the emission current exhibits high stability during the 20-minute operation. Furthermore, even at low vacuum (>1.5 × 10−5 Torr) it still exhibits good emission properties and a strong ability to withstand the ion bombardment, which is useful for low operation vacuum microelectronic devices.

Lowering of the firing voltage and reducing of the discharge delay time in alternating current plasma display panels by a discontinuous spin-coated LaB6 film on the MgO protective layer

“…As a new protective layer, LaB 6 film always presents much lower work function than MgO film. 19,20 Hence, all the LaB 6 /MgO double protective layers in Fig. 5 have lower firing voltages than the pure MgO film.…”

The Growth Methods and Field Emission Studies of Low-Dimensional Boron-Based Nanostructures

“…Among numerous LD nanostructure candidates, boron-based nanostructures are believed as ideal cold cathode nanomaterials [23][24][25][26][27][28][29][30][31][32][33][34][35][36][37][38][39][40][41] because they not only can meet the above requirements for FE current. For example, boron monoelement nanotube (NT) structures [24] have been proven to have metallic conductivity whether their chirality belongs to armchair or zigzag, which are very beneficial for actual FE applications.…”

Preparation of LaB₆ Powders via Calciothermic Reduction using Mechanochemistry and Acid Leaching

“…It can also be used in wear and corrosion resistant hard coatings for decoration of consumer products such as eye-glass frames and wristwatch casings (Mitterer et al, 1996;Selvan et al, 2008). Single crystalline LaB 6 nanowires are one of the most widely used electron emitter in electron gun, which can offer about 10 to 15 times higher brightness, higher emission stability, lower energy spread and longer service life than the tungsten cathodes utilized in a large variety of devices such as high-resolution electron microscopes, electron beam writing units, vacuum electron beam welding machines, microwave tubes, free electron lasers, X-ray tubes, electron beam surface reforming and electron beam lithography devices (Ahmed et al, 1975;Perkins et al, 1999;Chen et al, 2004;Wen et al, 2004;Zhang et al, 2006Zhang et al, , 2007Wang et al, 2009;Qin et al, 2010;Bao et al, 2011). Moreover, LaB 6 nanomaterials are candidates to motivate the new designs of nanoscale electronic devices operated at high temperatures with the need of enhanced electron collection and injection properties (Brewer et al, 2011).…”