S.A. Bagdasaryan – Ph. D. (Eng.), General Director, Ltd company «RFID&KS Technology» E-mail: bagdassarian@mail.ru

S.A. Nalimov – Senior Research Scientist, 

Central Research Technological Institute «Technomash» (Moscow)

To create field emission cathodes (autocathodes) used in the manufacture of displays and other devices, carbon nanowalls (CNW) are promising. The CNW layers are a porous material consisting of curved plates formed by graphene layers. The industrial use of CNW autocathodes is impeded by the heterogeneity and instability of the magnitude and density of the cathode current. To improve the characteristics of autocathodes, an AlN film is formed on the surface of the emitting substance, which also has the property of field emission.

CNW was obtained from a gas mixture of H2 and CH4 activated by a dc glow discharge. The CNW layers were deposited on silicon substrates and substrates representing a layered structure made by forming an opal matrix (OM) layer on a Si substrate. AlN films with controlled composition and structure were prepared by RF magnetron reactive sputtering. CNW layers with a thickness of > 4 μm were obtained by successive growth of two CNW layers (Si/CNW/CNW structure). An additional CNW layer was also grown on the surface of the first layer coated with Ni (Si/CNW/Ni/CNW structure). AlN films were grown on a CNW layer (Si/CNW/AlN and Si/OM/Ni/CNW/AlN structures). It is shown that CNW plates are formed from graphene layers partially connected by atomic bonds (up to 30 layers) packed in a hexagonal lattice, and AlN films consisted of amorphous and axially textured crystalline phases. The current-voltage characteristics of the autocathodes were measured in a pulsed mode at a pressure of ~10−3 Pa. The Si/CNW/CNW structures are characterized by a threshold of autoemission of ≤ 3.6 V/μm and a high density of centers of emission. The current-voltage characteristics of the layered structures Si/CNW/AlN, Si/OM/Ni/CNW and Si/OM/Ni/CNW /AlN showed better emission properties compared to the Si/CNW structure. The current-voltage characteristics considered make it possible to predict the structure and composition of the emitting layer to improve the operational characteristics of multilayer autocathodes.

Bagdasaryan S.A., Nalimov S.A. Structure and emission properties of structures based on carbon walls and aluminum nitride. Electromagnetic waves and electronic systems. 2020. V. 25. № 3. P. 20−28. DOI: https://doi.org/10.18127/j15604128-202003-03 (in Russian).

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