Active control of the emission current of field emitter arrays

Abstract

The current control and the stabilization in field emission of gated field emitter arrays (FEAs) are the highest demand for applications to a flat panel display and other beam devices. The concept of the field-effect-controlled field emission cathode is very useful for these purposes. We carried out preliminary experiments of the idea and showed that the controllability and the stability of emission current of FEA were significantly improved by an actively controlled FEA. Additionally, we discussed beam focusing of FEA for a flat panel display application.