Electric lamp or space discharge component or device manufacturi – Process – With start up – flashing or aging
Reexamination Certificate
2000-11-28
2004-10-12
Patel, Nimeshkumar D. (Department: 2879)
Electric lamp or space discharge component or device manufacturi
Process
With start up, flashing or aging
C445S024000, C445S050000
Reexamination Certificate
active
06802753
ABSTRACT:
TECHNICAL FIELD
The present invention relates to an electron beam device in which a plurality of electron emission portions are formed on a substrate, an image forming apparatus in which an image forming member is formed opposite to the electron emission portions and a method of manufacturing those devices.
BACKGROUND ART
Up to now, as the electron emitting elements, there have been known the two kinds of a hot cathode element and a cold cathode element. As the cold cathode element of those elements, there have been known, for example, a surface conduction type electron emission element, a field emission element (hereinafter referred to as “FlE type”), a metal/insulating layer/metal type emission element (hereinafter referred to as “MIM type”), etc.
As the surface conduction type electron emission elements, there have been known, for example, an example disclosed in Radio Eng. Electron Phys., 10, 1290 (1965) by M. I. Elinson, or other examples which will be described later.
The surface conduction type electron emission element utilizes a phenomenon in which electron emission occurs by allowing a current to flow into a small-area thin film formed on a substrate in parallel to a film surface. As the surface conduction type electron emission element, there have been reported a surface conduction type electron emission element using an SiO
2
thin film by the above-mentioned Elinson and others, a surface conduction type electron emission element using an Au thin film [G. Dittmer: “Thin Solid Films”, 9,317 (1972)], a surface conduction type electron emission element using an In
2
O
3
/SnO
2
thin film [M. Hartwell an C. G. Fonstad: “IEEE Trans. ED Conf.”, 519(1975)], a surface conduction type electron emission element using a carbon thin film [“Vapor Vacuum,” Vol. 26, No. 1, p 22 (1983), by Hisashi Araki, et al.], etc.
As a typical example of those surface conduction type electron emission elements, a plan view of the above-mentioned element by M. Hartwell is shown in FIG.
93
. In
FIG. 93
, reference numeral
8001
denotes a substrate, and reference numeral
8004
denotes an electrically conductive thin film that is made of a metal oxide formed through sputtering. The electrically conductive film
8004
is formed in an H-shaped plane as shown in FIG.
93
. An electrifying process called “electrification forming” which will be described later is conducted on the electrically conductive thin film
8004
to form an electron emission portion
8005
. In
FIG. 93
, an interval L is set to 0.5 to 1 (mm), and W is set to 0.1 (mm). For convenience of showing in the figure, the electron emission portion
8005
is shaped in a rectangle in the center of the electrically conductive thin film
8004
. However, this shape is schematic and does not faithfully express the position and the configuration of the actual electron emission portion.
In the above-mentioned surface conduction type electron emission elements including the element proposed by M. Hartwell, et al., the electron emission portion
8005
is generally formed on the electrically conductive film
8004
through the electrifying process which is called “electrification forming” before the electron emission is conducted. In other words, the electrification forming is directed to a process in which a constant d.c. voltage or a d.c. voltage that steps up at a very slow rate such as about 1 V/min is applied to both ends of the electrically conductive film
8004
and electrified, to thereby locally destroy, deform or affect the electrically conductive film
8004
, thus forming the electron emission portion
8005
which is in an electrically high-resistant state. A crack occurs in a part of the electrically conductive film
8004
which has been locally destroyed, deformed or affected. In the case where an appropriate voltage is applied to the electrically conductive thin film
8004
after the above electrification forming, electron emission is conducted from a portion close to the crack.
Examples of the FE type have been known from “Field Emission” of Advance in Electron Physics, 8, 89 (1956) by W. P. Dyke and W. W. Dolan, “Physical properties of thin-film field emission cathodes with molybdenum cones” of J. Appl. Phys., 47,5248 (1976), by C. A. Spindt, etc.
As a typical example of the element structure of the FE element,
FIG. 94
shows a cross-sectional view of the elements made by the above-mentioned C. A. Spindt, et al. In this figure, reference numeral
8010
denotes a substrate,
8011
is an emitter wiring made of an electrically conductive material,
8012
is an emitter cone,
8013
is an insulating layer, and
8014
is a gate electrode. The element of this type is so designed as to apply an appropriate voltage between the emitter cone
8012
and the gate electrode
8014
to produce electric field emission from a leading portion of the emitter cone
8012
.
Also, as another element structure of the FE type, there is an example in which an emitter and a gate electrode are disposed on a substrate substantially in parallel with the substrate plane, without using a laminate structure shown in FIG.
94
.
Also, as an example of the MIM type, there has been known, for example, “Operation of tunnel-emission devices,” J. Appl. Phys., 32,646 (1961) by C. A. Mead, etc. A typical example of the element structure of the MIM type is shown in FIG.
95
.
FIG. 95
is a cross-sectional view, and in the figure, reference numeral
8020
denotes a substrate,
8021
is a lower electrode made of metal,
8022
is a thin insulating layer about 10 nm in thickness, and
8023
is an upper electrode made of metal about 8 to 30 nm in thickness. In the MIM type, an appropriate voltage is applied between the upper electrode
8023
and the lower electrode
8021
, to thereby produce electron emission from the surface of the upper electrode
8023
.
The above-mentioned cold cathode element does not require a heater for heating because it can obtain electron emission at a low temperature as compared with the hot cathode element. Accordingly, the cold cathode element is simpler in structure than the hot cathode element and can prepare a fine element. Also, in the cold cathode element, even if a large number of elements are disposed on the substrate with a high density, a problem such as heat melting of the substrate is difficult to occur. Further, the cold cathode element is advantageous in that a response speed is high which is different from the hot cathode element which is low in the response speed because it operates due to heating by the heater. For the above-mentioned reasons, a study for applying the cold cathode elements has been extensively conducted.
For example, the surface conduction type electron emission element has the advantage that a large number of elements can be formed on a large area since it is particularly simple in structure and easy to manufacture among the cold cathode elements.
For that reason, a method in which a large number of elements are arranged and driven has been studied as disclosed in JP-A-64-31332 by the present applicant.
As the application of the surface conduction type electron emission element, for example, an image display device, an image forming apparatus such as an image recording device, a charge beam source, and so on have been studied.
In particular, as the application to the image display device, there has been studied an image display device using the combination of the surface conduction type electron emission element with a phosphor that emits light by irradiation of an electron beam as disclosed in for example U.S. Pat. No. 5,066,883 by the present applicant, JP-A-2-257551, and JP-A-4-28137. In the image display device using the combination of the surface conduction type electron emission element with the phosphor, the characteristic superior to the conventional other image display devices is expected. For example, even as compared with the liquid crystal display device which has been spreading in recent years, the above image display device is excellent in that no back light is required
Ando Yoichi
Hayama Akira
Kawasaki Hideshi
Kobayashi Tamaki
Mogi Satoshi
Patel Nimeshkumar D.
Santiago Mariceli
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