9.4: The effect of ballast resistor and field screening on electron emission of nano-diamond emitters fabricated on micropatterned silicon pillar arrays

This paper describes the influence of ballast resistor and field screening on the electron field emission behavior of nano-diamond emitter arrays fabricated on micropatterned silicon pillars. Arrays of 50 × 50 silicon pillars with different ballast resistances, pillar separations, capped with nano-diamond, have been fabricated on different silicon substrates as cathode for field emission testing. The goal of this study is to evaluate the fabrication method and electron emission characteristics in this configuration for field emission applications. The electron field emission results have been compared to observe the effect of the ballast resistive behavior and array spacing of micropatterned silicon pillars on the nano-diamond field emission behaviors.