Flat panel light source with lateral gate structure based on sic nanowire field emitters

Abstract

A field-emission light source with high luminance, excellent luminance uniformity, and tunable luminance characteristics with a novel lateral-gate structure is demonstrated. The lateral-gate triode structure comprises SiC nanowire emitters on a Ag cathode electrode and a pair of Ag gate electrodes placed laterally on both sides of the cathode. The simple and cost-effective screen printing technique is employed to pattern the lateral-gates and cathode structure on soda lime glass. The area coverage of the screen-printed cathode and gates on the glass substrate (area: 6'×'8'cm 2) is in the range of 2.04%'-'4.74% depending on the set of cathode-gate electrodes on the substrate. The lateral-gate structure with its small area coverage exhibits a two-dimensional luminance pattern with high brightness and good luminance uniformity. A maximum luminance of 10952'cd/cm 2 and a luminance uniformity of >90% can be achieved with a gate voltage of 500'V and an anode voltage of 4000'V, with an anode current of 1.44'mA and current leakage to the gate from the cathode of about 10%.