The performance of silicon gated field emission arrays (GFEAs) was characterized before and after ultraviolet (UV) light exposure. Emission and gate leakage currents were measured on 1000 × 1000 tip arrays by sweeping the gate voltage to 40 V DC with a fixed DC collector voltage of 100 V DC. UV light exposure was used to desorb water molecules from the GFEA surfaces. It was found that, before UV exposure, the gate current was 6 mA at 40 V, whereas after 70 min of UV exposure, the gate current decreased to 0.46 mA, indicating a more than ten times reduction in leakage current between the gate and the emitter. Similarly, the observed collector current was 94 μA at 40 V before exposure, and after UV exposure, the collector current increased to 1.33 mA, indicating an improvement of more than 14 times. During the experiments with UV light, residual gas analyzer measurements showed that the partial pressure for water increased by greater than ten times after 60 min of exposure and then decreased by 1 order of magnitude after 100 min of exposure. The emission and leakage current changes remained even after turning off the UV lamps for several tens of minutes; however, upon the exposure to the atmosphere for a few days, those changes reversed. The enhancement could again be observed after additional UV exposure indicating that the adsorbates (mainly water along with others) on the surface affected the leakage between gate and emitter and field emission. Based on analysis of the IV characteristics before and after UV exposure, the work function of the emitter surfaces increases while the portion of the array tips that emits expands resulting in a decrease in the calculated array tip sharpness as duller tips now emit.

中文翻译：

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紫外线激发水解吸对门控场发射器阵列发射性能的影响

硅门控场发射阵列（GFEA）的性能在紫外线（UV）曝光之前和之后进行了表征。通过使用100 V DC的固定DC集电极电压将栅极电压扫至40 V DC，在1000×1000尖端阵列上测量发射和栅极泄漏电流。紫外线暴露用于从GFEA表面解吸水分子。结果发现，在紫外线照射之前，40 V时的栅极电流为6 mA，而在紫外线照射70 min之后，栅极电流降至0.46 mA，这表明栅极和栅极之间的泄漏电流降低了十倍以上。发射器。同样，观察到的集电极电流为 94μ在曝光前和暴露于紫外线后的40 V电压下，集电极电流增加至1.33 mA，表明提高了14倍以上。在使用紫外线的实验过程中，残留气体分析仪的测量结果表明，水的分压在暴露60分钟后增加了十倍以上，然后在暴露100分钟后降低了1个数量级。即使关闭紫外线灯数十分钟，发射和泄漏电流的变化仍然保持；但是，暴露在大气中几天后，这些变化却发生了逆转。在额外的紫外线照射后，可以再次观察到这种增强，表明表面上的被吸附物（主要是水以及其他水）影响了栅极和发射极之间的泄漏以及场发射。