Abstract
Degradation of electron emission characteristics in silicon field emitters and its mechanism have been studied. The silicon field emitters with a triode type were fabricated by using a chemical-mechanical-polishing process. There exists a critical biasing time, t_<c'> at which the anode current starts to be degraded predominantly. The t_c is shortened as the anode current increases. Also, the emission current repeatedly measured within t_c with a complete relaxation after each measurement would not be degraded even though the total biasing time exceeded the critical time. The experimental results indicate that the degradation in silicon field emitters mainly orlginates from thermal instability of the Si tip due to Nottingham heating.
