SiO_x Tunneling Diode Arrays With Uniform Electron Emission

Uniform electron emission (EE) from on-chip micro-emitter arrays based on SiO _x tunneling diodes (STDs) in electroformed SiO _x is reported. EE from STDs is found to be accompanied with visible light emission, which enables us to resolve the spatial distribution of EE from the micro-emitter arrays and emitter-to-emitter uniformity at the microscale resolution via optical imaging. Up to 99% micro-emitters in a 15 $\times15$ array is observed to work simultaneously with good emitter-to-emitter uniformity, showing an emission current of 0.56 mA and an emission density of 626 mA/cm ² . The good uniformity is attributed to the insensitivity of EE from STDs to the microfabricated structures of micro-emitters.