Carbon Nanotubes for
Large-Area Field Emission Displays
Tel: 82-31-280-9311, Fax: 82-31-280-9349, email: jongkim@sait.samsung.co.kr
2FED Team, CRD, Samsung SDI, 575, Shin-Dong, Paldal-Gu, Suwon 442-391, Korea
Samsung Advanced Institute of Technology, P. O. Box
111, Suwon 440-600, KOREA
Carbon nanotubes
(CNTs) have attracted considerable attention as a field emitter material due to
their excellent field emission characteristics, strong chemical stability, and
high mechanical strength. Despite a great deal of effort to realize
applications of CNTs, it is expected that the first application of CNTs with a
large commercial market would be electron emitters for field-emission displays
(FEDs). FEDs are characterized by superior display performances such as fast
response time, wide viewing angles, wide operation temperatures, cathode ray
tube (CRT) like colors, ultra-slim features, low cost, and low-power
consumption. The application of CNTs to FEDs necessitates their vertical
alignment on cathode electrodes for better electron emission. At present, CVD
technologies to synthesize well-aligned CNTs over a large area of glass
substrates at low temperatures have not been well developed. Thus, we
have focused upon the development of low-cost, simple, and scalable screen-printing
technology for the fabrication of cathode plates with CNT emitters. It is
expected that CNTs will enable the production of a low cost, low-power
consumption, and scalability.
Our team fabricated a field emission display (FED) panel with 4.5, 9, and 15 inch diagonals using single-walled carbon nanotubes. Our studies, however, were restricted to diode structures. For full gray scales and high brightness of FEDs, a triode structure is required. This study present triode-type FEDs with CNT emitters, including under-gate triode, remote-gate triode, and normal-gate triode structures. For the under-gate triode structure FED, gate electrodes are placed underneath cathode electrodes with an in-between insulating layer. In the remote-gate triode structure, a grid plate with gate holes is separately fabricated. On the other hand, the normal-gate triode emitter structure resembles the Spindt-type cathode but a larger gate hole diameter. For these triode emitter structures, electron emission from the carbon nanotube emitters is controlled by modulating gate voltages. This talk will compare their fabrication processes and emission characteristics in detail. Simplicity of structure and fabrication processes of our triode structure CNT-FEDs seems to enable them to possess a high potential of practical applications.
Keywords: carbon nanotubes, FEDs,
new emitter materials, triode structure, screen printing