Document Type

Thesis

Date of Award

1-31-1990

Degree Name

Master of Science in Electrical Engineering - (M.S.)

Department

Electrical and Computer Engineering

First Advisor

Ken K. Chin

Second Advisor

William N. Carr

Third Advisor

Marek Sosnowski

Abstract

A new generation of microelectronic devices utilizing vacuum field emission cathodes becomes surging interest in recent years. This paper concentrates on the study of the field emission diode — a basic vacuum microelectronic device. The field emission efficiency, current spatial distribution and time dispersion of conical tips and wedges of various geometrical shapes are compared and calculated by analytical methods and computer simulations. Two field emitter heating effects, namely the Joule heating and Nottingham effect, are discussed theoretically. All the simulation results in this paper are performed on 386 based personal computer. The limiting memory space of PC induced simulation error is analyzed. Based on the calculation and simulation, four performance criteria for individual field emission sources are suggested. They are emission efficiency, Joule heating effect, emission current spatial distribution, and emission current temporal dispersion. Optimized design of field emission diodes and arrays are proposed. The main results of this thesis has been accepted for publication in the IEEE Device Transaction.

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