Abstract
Nb silicide was formed on the Si micro-tip arrays in order to improve field emission properties of Si-tip field emitter array. After silicidization of the tips, the etch-back process, by which gate insulator, gate electrode and photoresist were deposited sequentially and gate holes were defined by removing gradually the photoresist by $O_2$ plasma from the surface, was applied. Si nitride film was used as a protective layer in order to prevent oxygen from diffusion into Nb silicide layer and it was identified that the NbSi2 was formed through annealing in $N_2$ ambient at $1100^{\circ}C$ for 1 hour. By the Nb silicide coating on Si tips, the turn-on voltage was decreased from 52.1 V to 32.3 V and average current fluctuation for 1 hour was also reduced from 5% to 2%. Also, the fabricated Nb silicide-coated Si tip FEA emitted electrons toward the phosphor and light emission was obtained at the gate voltage of 40~50 V.
