Developments in Ceramic Materials Research

Field Emission Display on Ceramic 259
fabrication technique, scaling this method to large area substrates, especially larger than 400
mm on the side, is still a major technical challenge.
The modern ceramics for engineering applications can be considered to be nontraditional.
The new and emerging family of ceramics is referred to as advanced, new or fine,
and utilise highly refined materials and new forming techniques. These new advanced
ceramics, when used as an engineering material, possess several properties which can be
viewed as superior to other materials’ properties. The packaging capability for electronics
plus other properties such as chemical inertness, dimensional stability and mechanical
hardness are attractive to FEDs application. In this chapter, the fabrication of the Spindt type
micro field emitters on ceramic substrate is presented. Systematic electrical characteristics
studies of the micro field emitters on ceramic are reported. In a comparison study, micro field
emitters on ceramic substrate have demonstrated equivalent electrical performance as micro
field emitters on silicon substrate. The ceramic unique packaging capability allows building
the row and column electrodes and electrical driver to the back of substrate, which makes it
feasible to scale up FED by tiling with small FEDs on ceramic.
The on going research efforts focus on the development of next generation of FEDs, such
as those based on carbon nanotubes cold cathodes. These new materials offer exciting new
possibilities to produce cheaper and more robust displays. However, much of the physics
which governs the operation of the Spindt type based FEDs remains unchanged. In other
words, technological hurdles such as long term cathode reliability and high voltage break
down have to be addressed regardless of the type of field emission cathode used. The mature
thin film technique could allow the carbon nanotubes cathodes to be built on ceramic easily. It
will not be surprised to see large panel FEDs sale on the market in the future as the techniques
are already there.
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