JP3320299B2 - Electron emitting element, electron source, and method of manufacturing image forming apparatus - Google Patents

Description

DETAILED DESCRIPTION OF THE INVENTION

[0001]

The present invention relates to an electron-emitting device, an electron source, and a method for manufacturing an image forming apparatus.

[0002]

2. Description of the Related Art Conventionally, two types of electron emitting devices, a thermionic electron source and a cold cathode electron source, are known. The cold cathode electron source includes a field emission type (hereinafter abbreviated as FE type), a metal / insulating layer / metal type (hereinafter abbreviated as MIM type), and a surface conduction type electron emission element. As an example of the FE type, W. P. Dyke &
W. W. Dolan, "Field emissio
n ", Advance in Electron Ph
ysics, 8, 89 (1956) or C.I. A. S
pindt, "PHYSICAL Properties"
s of thin-film field emis
sion cathodes with mollybd
eneium cones "J. Appl. Phys.,
47, 52488 (1976) and the like.

As an example of the MIM type, C.I. A. Mead.
“Operation of Tunnel-Emis
site Devices, ”J. Apply. Phys.
s. , 32, 646 (1961).

Examples of the surface conduction electron-emitting device type include:
M. I. Elinson, Radio Eng. Ele
ctron Pys. , 10, (1965).

[0005] The surface conduction electron-emitting device utilizes a phenomenon in which an electron is emitted when a current flows in a small-area thin film formed on a substrate in parallel with the film surface. As this surface conduction type electron-emitting device, the above-mentioned Elinso
n using an SnO ₂ thin film, an Au thin film [G. Dittmer, “Thin SolidF
ilms ", 9,317 (1972)] . In 2 0 3 /
According to SnO ₂ thin film [M. Hart well a
nd C.I. G. FIG. Fonstad, “IEEE Tran
s. ED Conf. , 519 (1975)], based on a carbon thin film [Hisashi Araki et al., Vacuum, Vol. 26, No. 1
No. 22, p. 22 (1983)].

A typical device configuration of these surface conduction electron-emitting devices is described in the aforementioned M.A. FIG. 23 shows an element configuration of Hartwell. In the figure, 221 is a substrate.
Reference numeral 224 denotes a conductive thin film, which is formed of a metal oxide thin film or the like formed by sputtering in an H-shaped pattern.
3 is formed. The element electrode interval L in the figure is 0.5
１1 mm and W are set at 0.1 mm. Since the position and shape of the electron emitting portion 223 are not known, they are shown as schematic diagrams.

Conventionally, in these surface conduction electron-emitting devices, the electron-emitting portion 223 has generally been formed by applying a current to the conductive thin film 224 before the electron emission by an energization process called energization forming. That is, energization forming means applying a DC voltage or a very slowly increasing voltage, for example, about 1 V / min, to both ends of the conductive thin film 224 and energizing the conductive thin film 224 to locally destroy, deform or alter the conductive thin film. This is to form the electron-emitting portion 223 in a high-resistance state. In the electron emitting portion 223, a crack is generated in a part of the conductive thin film 224, and electrons are emitted from the vicinity of the crack. The surface conduction type electron-emitting device that has been subjected to the energization forming process causes the electron-emitting portion 223 to emit electrons by applying a voltage to the conductive thin film 224 and flowing a current through the device.

The above-mentioned surface conduction electron-emitting device has an advantage that a large number of devices can be arranged and formed over a large area because the structure is simple and the production is easy. Therefore, various applications that make use of this feature are being studied. For example,
Examples include a charged beam source and a display device. As an example in which a large number of surface conduction electron-emitting devices are arranged and formed, as will be described later, a surface conduction electron-emitting device is arranged in parallel called a trapezoidal arrangement, and both ends of each element are interconnected (also referred to as a common interconnect). )
An electron source in which a number of connected lines are arranged in a large number of rows (for example, Japanese Patent Application Laid-Open No.
-283749, 2-257552, etc.). In particular, in image forming apparatuses such as display apparatuses, flat panel display apparatuses using liquid crystal have recently become popular in place of CRTs. However, since they are not self-luminous, they must have a backlight. There is a problem, and development of a self-luminous display device has been desired. As a self-luminous display device, an image forming apparatus that is a display device combining an electron source having a large number of surface conduction electron-emitting devices and a phosphor that emits visible light by electrons emitted from the electron source, (Eg, US Pat. No. 5,066,883).

[0009]

Conventionally, the conductive thin film 22
No. 4 was formed of a material having a sufficiently large resistance as compared with the metal film. This is because forming the electron-emitting portion by energizing forming reduces the resistance of the conductive thin film for forming the electron-emitting portion, thereby increasing the current required for energizing forming. This requires an energization treatment device with a large current specification that is not practical.

On the other hand, in these electron sources and image forming apparatuses using the same, patterning of element electrodes and the like is performed between element electrodes of a surface-conduction type electron-emitting element with the enlargement of the apparatus (larger area). Length (gap length) is 3 μm
More preferably, it is required to be several tens μm or more in view of the performance of the exposure apparatus and production problems such as yield.

Although a thin film of an appropriate resistance is realized by using a metal oxide or a thin film of a mixture of a metal and an oxide as the above-mentioned conductive thin film, particularly in a device having a wide gap length, a thin film is formed in an electrode gap during forming. There has been a case where a problem occurs that a distribution occurs in the formed crack width. This is because by making the gap wide, the resistance distribution generated by the film thickness distribution of the conductive thin film in the gap becomes large,
The distribution of the crack width is caused by locally different power consumed in the energization forming. When a voltage is applied between the drive electrodes of an element with a crack width distribution and electrons are emitted from the crack, this distribution also produces a distribution in the electric field intensity applied to the crack, and the electron emission part is partially As a result, the center of the pixel of the phosphor and the center of the electron beam may be displaced and the luminance may be reduced, which causes a distribution of luminance. Further, when the thickness of the metal oxide was small and the resistance was large, the forming current did not flow, and a portion where no crack was formed occurred. This causes an ohmic leakage current during the electron emission driving, which also causes an increase in driving power.

Here, crack formation during forming when the conductive thin film has a film thickness distribution will be described with reference to FIG. In FIG. 22A, reference numeral 1 denotes an insulating substrate;
Reference numeral 3 denotes a metal electrode for injecting current into the device. 4
Is a conductive thin film, 217 is a central portion of the conductive thin film, 218,
Reference numeral 219 denotes both ends of the conductive thin film. Forming is performed by applying a voltage from an external power supply V to the conductive thin film through the electrodes 2 and 3 to flow a current. Here, when an electron emission portion is formed at the center between the electrodes, both ends thereof are formed. Consider the case where the thickness of the conductive thin film is different between the portions 218 and 219 and the central portion 217.
8 and 219, but the thickness of the conductive thin film may be generally different.

At this time, assuming that the thickness of the conductive thin film central portion 217 is ds, the width is ws, the resistance is Rs, the thickness of the conductive thin film at both ends 218 and 219 is df, the width is wf, and the resistance is Rf. Are formed by an equivalent circuit as shown in FIG. Constant resistivity ρ of the conductive thin film
When the power required for forming is P0, the conductive thin film becomes a resistance component connected in parallel.
The drive voltage required to apply
, Vs at the center and Vs at the center.

[0014]

(Equation 1) That is, as the ratio of df to ds becomes smaller, Vf becomes larger. When the ratio becomes extremely thin, the voltage required for forming becomes excessively large. In some cases, the reduction of the thin film progresses and a large current flows due to a reduction in resistance, which may cause the generation of a crack width distribution.

When the forming is incomplete as shown in FIG. 22 (c), the leakage current at the time of the electron emission driving causes an increase in power consumption. When the number of elements is increased, the leakage current increases in accordance with the number of elements. Therefore, a high-quality image forming apparatus having an increased number of pixels and a large-screen image forming apparatus have a disadvantage that power consumption is unnecessarily large. . In addition, considering the improvement of power efficiency, it is necessary to keep the film thickness distribution of the element small, which limits the degree of freedom in designing the element shape, and in the case of a conductive thin film formed by a simple manufacturing method such as printing, an ink jet method, and a bubble jet method. In addition, there is a problem that it is difficult to form a small film thickness distribution and mass production is difficult.

In view of the above problems, an object of the present invention is to provide a power-efficient electron-emitting device which has a simple configuration and can be easily applied to a large-sized device (large area). An object of the present invention is to realize an image forming apparatus with less luminance unevenness.

[0017]

According to the present invention, there is provided a method for manufacturing an electron-emitting device having a conductive film in which an electron-emitting portion is formed between electrodes. A first energizing step to a conductive film composed of an oxide or a metal and an oxide, and after the energizing step
A step of reducing the conductive film of
And a second energizing step.

Further, the conductive film before the reduction step is made of Pd
O, SnO ₂ , In ₂ O ₃ , PbO, Sb ₂ O ₃ , MoO,
Oxides selected from MoO ₂ , or Pd, Pt, R
u, Ag, Au, Ti, In, Mo, Cu, Cr, F
It is characterized by comprising a mixture of a metal selected from e, Zn, Sn, Ta, W, and Pb and the oxide.

Further, the first energizing step performed before the reducing step is terminated when a current flowing through the conductive film becomes a predetermined current value or less.

In a method of manufacturing an electron source having a plurality of electron-emitting devices arranged on a substrate, the electron-emitting devices are manufactured by any one of the above-described methods.

Further, in the method of manufacturing an image forming apparatus having an electron source in which a plurality of electron-emitting devices are arranged on a base, and an image forming member for forming an image by irradiating electrons from the electron source, An electron-emitting device is manufactured by one of the above methods.

[0022]

Next, preferred embodiments of the present invention will be described. First, a forming process which is a feature of the present invention will be described with reference to FIG. The energization process called energization forming energizes a power supply (not shown) between the element electrodes 2 and 3 to form an electron emitting portion 5 having a changed structure at a portion of the conductive thin film 4. The conductive thin film 4 is locally destroyed, deformed or deteriorated by the energization forming, and a portion where the structure is changed is referred to as an electron emitting portion 5. FIG. 2 shows an example of the voltage waveform of the energization forming.

In FIG. 2, T1 and T2 are a pulse width and a pulse interval of the voltage waveform, and T1 is 1 microsecond to 1 microsecond.
0 milliseconds, T2 is 10 microseconds to 100 milliseconds,
The peak value of the triangular wave (the peak voltage of the energizing forming pulse) is increased, for example, by about 0.1 V step,
Apply under an appropriate vacuum atmosphere.

FIG. 3 shows the peak value of the triangular wave and the current value at the peak value. The peak value of the peak value of the current is Imax, and the voltage at this time is Vmax.

Normally, when the energization forming process is completed, the current value when the maximum voltage of the triangular wave is applied is equal to the peak pulse interval T2.
When the element current is measured at a voltage at which the conductive thin film 4 does not locally break or deform, for example, a voltage of about 0.1 V, and a resistance value is obtained, for example, when a resistance of 1 M ohm or more is indicated. Then, the energization forming is terminated. However, in the case where it is difficult to increase the resistance due to the thickness distribution of the conductive thin film described above, the first forming is terminated when the current value reaches a certain ratio with respect to Imax. The ratio to Imax is appropriately set according to the material and the average thickness of the conductive thin film, but is preferably 90% or less (Iend / Imax ≦ 0.9).

Next, a reduction treatment is performed by heat treatment in a vacuum, reduction gas atmosphere treatment, or the like. In this process, the element is mounted on the reduction processing apparatus 7 and the processing is performed until the entire surface of the conductive thin film 4 is completely reduced.

Finally, the conductive thin film after the reduction is subjected to energization forming again. The contents of the process are performed in the same manner as the first time, the element current is measured, and the resistance value is obtained.
When a resistance of 1 M ohm or more is indicated, the energization forming is terminated. Here, the portion where the film thickness is small and the resistance is relatively high is reduced by the reduction and the current flows, so that the forming can be completed at a low voltage.

As a result, in the electron-emitting device, the crack formed by the forming becomes uniform, the reproducibility of the position and the emission amount of the electron-emitting portion is increased, and the production yield is improved. Also, when a large number of devices are formed, the variation in the amount of electron emission between the devices is reduced, and the uniformity is improved. Furthermore, when forming an electron-emitting device on a large-area substrate, it is possible to increase the margin of the thickness of the conductive thin film by using the manufacturing method of the present invention, printing, inkjet,
The device can be manufactured at low cost by a simple method such as a bubble jet method or a spray method. According to the image forming apparatus using the above-mentioned electron source, a large-sized display device having high uniformity of luminance can be realized.

First, the plane type surface conduction electron-emitting device will be described. FIG. 4 is a schematic diagram showing a configuration of a flat surface conduction electron-emitting device to which the present invention can be applied.
4A is a plan view, and FIG. 4B is a sectional view. In FIG. 4, 1 is a substrate, 2 and 3 are device electrodes, 4 is a conductive thin film, 5
Denotes an electron emission portion.

Examples of the substrate 1 include quartz glass, glass having a reduced content of impurities such as Na, blue plate glass, a glass substrate obtained by laminating SiO ₂ formed on a blue plate glass by a sputtering method, ceramics such as alumina, and a Si substrate. Can be used.

The materials of the opposing device electrodes 2 and 3 are as follows.
General conductor materials can be used. This includes, for example, Ni, Cr, Au, Mo, W, Pt, Ti, Al, C
metals or alloys such as u, Pd and Pd, Ag, Au, R
It can be appropriately selected from a printed conductor composed of a metal such as uO ₂ or Pd-Ag and a metal oxide and glass, a transparent conductor such as In ₂ O ₃ , and a semiconductor material such as polysilicon.

The element electrode interval L, the element electrode length W, the shape of the conductive thin film 4 and the like are designed in consideration of the applied form and the like. The element electrode interval L can be preferably in the range of several thousand angstroms to several hundred micrometers, and more preferably several micrometer to several tens of micrometer in consideration of a voltage applied between the element electrodes. Range.

The length W of the device electrode can be in the range of several micrometers to several hundred micrometers in consideration of the resistance value of the electrode and the electron emission characteristics. Device electrodes 2, 3
Can be in the range of hundreds of angstroms to several micrometers.

It should be noted that not only the structure shown in FIG.
A configuration in which the conductive thin film 4 and the opposing device electrodes 2 and 3 are laminated on the above in this order can also be adopted.

As the conductive thin film 4, a fine particle film composed of fine particles is preferably used in order to obtain good electron emission characteristics. The film thickness is appropriately set in consideration of the step coverage to the device electrodes 2 and 3, the resistance value between the device electrodes 2 and 3, a forming condition described later, and the like.
The thickness is preferably in the range of several angstroms to several thousand angstroms, and more preferably in the range of 10 angstroms to 500 angstroms.
The resistance value is such that Rs is 10 ² to 10 ⁷ Ω / □. Note that Rs appears when the resistance R of a thin film having a thickness of t, a width of w, and a length of 1 is set as R = Rs (1 / w).

The material forming the conductive thin film 4 is Pd
O, SnO ₂ , In ₂ O ₃ , PbO, Sb ₂ O ₃ , MoO,
Oxides such as MoO ₂ , or Pd, Pt, Ru, A
g, Au, Ti, In, Mo, Cu, Cr, Fe, Z
It is appropriately selected from a mixture of a metal such as n, Sn, Ta, W, Pb and the above oxide, and the like.

The fine particle film described here is a film in which a plurality of fine particles are aggregated, and has a fine structure in a state in which the fine particles are individually dispersed and arranged or in a state in which the fine particles are adjacent to each other or overlap each other (when some fine particles are formed). To form an island-like structure as a whole). The particle size of the fine particles ranges from several Angstroms to several thousand Angstroms, preferably from 10 ° to 200 °.
Range.

In the present specification, the term “fine particles” is frequently used, and the meaning will be described. Small particles are called "fine particles" and smaller ones are called "ultra fine particles". It is widely practiced to call a “cluster” smaller than “ultrafine particles” and having a few hundred atoms or less. However, each boundary is not strict and changes depending on what kind of property is focused on. In addition, “fine particles” and “ultrafine particles” may be collectively referred to as “fine particles”, and the description in this specification is in line with this.

The following is described in "Experimental Physics Course 14 Surface / Particles" (edited by Yoshio Kinoshita, published by Kyoritsu Shuppan, September 1, 1986). "In this paper, when we say fine particles, the diameter is about 2 to 3 μm to about 10 nm, and especially when we say ultrafine particles, we mean about 10 nm to about 2 to 3 nm. It is not a strict one because it is sometimes written as a fine particle, and is a rough guide. When the number of atoms constituting a particle is two to several tens to several hundreds, it is called a cluster. " ~ Line 26).

In addition, the definition of “ultrafine particles” in the “Hayashi / Ultrafine Particle Project” of the New Technology Development Corporation was that the lower limit of the particle size was even smaller, as follows. "Ultra-fine particle project" of the Creative Science and Technology Promotion System (19
81-1986), the size (diameter) of the particles is about 1
超 100 nm range is referred to as “ultrafine particles” (ultra fine particles).
fineparticle). Then one of the ultra-fine particles will be referred to a collection of about 100 to 10 ⁸ much of the atom. Ultra-fine particles are large to giant particles on an atomic scale. ("Ultra Fine Particles-Creative Science and Technology-" Hayashi Tax, Ryoji Ueda, Akira Tazaki, Mita Publishing 1988
2nd page, 1st to 4th year) "A particle smaller than an ultrafine particle, that is, a single particle composed of several to several hundred atoms is usually called a cluster."
Lines 2-13).

Based on the above general term,
In this specification, the term “fine particles” refers to an aggregate of a large number of atoms and molecules, and the lower limit of the particle diameter is about several Å to about 10 Å, and the upper limit is about several μm.

The electron-emitting portion 5 is constituted by a high-resistance crack formed in a part of the conductive thin film 4, and depends on the thickness, film quality, material, and the method of energization forming and the like of the conductive thin film 4, which will be described later. It will be. Inside the electron emission unit 5,
In some cases, conductive fine particles having a particle size in the range of several angstroms to several hundred angstroms are present. The conductive fine particles contain some or all of the elements of the material constituting the conductive thin film 4. Electron emission unit 5
Also, the conductive thin film 4 in the vicinity thereof may contain carbon or a carbon compound.

Next, the vertical surface conduction electron-emitting device will be described. FIG. 5 is a schematic diagram showing an example of a vertical surface conduction electron-emitting device to which the surface conduction electron-emitting device of the present invention can be applied. In FIG. 5, the same portions as those shown in FIG. 4 are denoted by the same reference numerals as those in FIG. 21 is a step forming part. Substrate 1, device electrode 2
And 3, the conductive thin film 4, and the electron-emitting portion 5 can be made of the same material as in the case of the above-mentioned flat surface conduction electron-emitting device. The step forming portion 21 can be made of an insulating material such as SiO ₂ formed by a vacuum deposition method, a printing method, a sputtering method, or the like. The film thickness of the step forming portion 21 is
The distance can be in the range of several thousand angstroms to several tens of micrometers corresponding to the element electrode interval L of the flat surface conduction electron-emitting element described above. This film thickness is set in consideration of the manufacturing method of the step forming portion and the voltage applied between the device electrodes, but is preferably in the range of several hundred angstroms to several micrometers.

The conductive thin film 4 is laminated on the device electrodes 2 and 3 after the device electrodes 2 and 3 and the step forming portion 21 are formed. In FIG. 5, the electron emitting section 5 includes a step forming section 21.
However, depending on manufacturing conditions, forming conditions, and the like, the shape and position are not limited to these.

There are various methods for manufacturing the above-mentioned surface conduction electron-emitting device, one example of which is schematically shown in FIG.

Hereinafter, an example of the manufacturing method will be described with reference to FIGS. In FIG. 6 as well, the same parts as those shown in FIG. 4 are denoted by the same reference numerals as in FIG.

(1) The substrate 1 is sufficiently washed with a detergent, pure water, an organic solvent, and the like, and after the element electrode material is deposited by a vacuum deposition method, a sputtering method, or the like, the substrate 1 is formed on the substrate 1 by using, for example, a photolithography technique. Next, device electrodes 2 and 3 are formed (FIG. 6A).

(2) On the substrate 1 provided with the device electrodes 2 and 3,
An organometallic solution is applied to form an organometallic thin film. As the organic metal solution, a solution of an organic metal compound containing the metal of the material of the conductive film 4 as a main element can be used.
The organic metal thin film is heated and baked, and is patterned by lift-off, etching, or the like to form a conductive thin film 4 (FIG. 6B). Here, the method of applying the organometallic solution has been described, but the method of forming the conductive thin film 4 is not limited to this, and a vacuum deposition method, a sputtering method, a chemical vapor deposition method, a dispersion coating method, In addition to the dipping method, the spinner method, and the spray method, an inkjet method and a bubble jet method that do not require patterning can be used.

(3) The forming step which is a feature of the present invention will be described with reference to FIG.

The energization processing called energization forming includes:
A power is supplied from a power source (not shown) between the device electrodes 2 and 3 to form an electron-emitting portion 5 having a changed structure at a portion of the conductive thin film 4. The conductive thin film 4 is locally destroyed, deformed or deteriorated by the energization forming, and a portion where the structure is changed is referred to as an electron emitting portion 5. FIG. 2 shows an example of the voltage waveform of the energization forming.

In FIG. 2, T1 and T2 are the pulse width and pulse interval of the voltage waveform, and T1 is 1 microsecond to 1 microsecond.
0 milliseconds, T2 is 10 microseconds to 100 milliseconds,
The peak value of the triangular wave (the peak voltage of the energizing forming pulse) is increased, for example, by about 0.1 V step,
Apply under an appropriate vacuum atmosphere. The peak value of the triangular wave and the current value at the peak value are shown in FIG. The peak value of the peak value of the current is Imax, and the voltage at this time is Vmax.

Normally, the energization forming process is terminated when the current value when the maximum voltage of the triangular wave is applied is equal to the peak pulse interval T2.
When the element current is measured at a voltage at which the conductive thin film 4 does not locally break or deform, for example, a voltage of about 0.1 V, and a resistance value is obtained, for example, when a resistance of 1 M ohm or more is indicated. Then, the energization forming is terminated. However, in the case where it is difficult to increase the resistance due to the thickness distribution of the conductive thin film described above, when the current value becomes a constant ratio with respect to Imax, or when the voltage becomes a constant ratio with respect to Vmax, The first forming is completed. Ima
The ratio to x and Vmax is appropriately set depending on the material and the average film thickness of the conductive thin film.
0% or less.

(4) Then, reduction treatment is performed by heat treatment in a vacuum, reduction gas atmosphere treatment, or the like. In this process, the element is mounted on the reduction processing device 7 (FIG. 1), and the processing is performed until the entire surface of the conductive thin film 4 is completely reduced.

(5) Finally, the conductive thin film after reduction is subjected to energization forming again. The contents of the process are performed in the same manner as the first time, the element current is measured, the resistance value is obtained,
For example, when a resistance of 1 M ohm or more is indicated, the energization forming is terminated. Here, the portion where the film thickness is small and the resistance is relatively high is reduced by the reduction and the current flows, so that the forming can be completed at a low voltage.

(6) It is preferable to perform a process called an activation step on the device after the forming. The activation step means that the element current If, the emission current Ie
Is a step that changes significantly.

The activation step can be performed, for example, by repeating the application of a pulse in an atmosphere containing an organic substance gas, similarly to the energization forming. This atmosphere can be formed by using an organic gas remaining in the atmosphere when exhausted into a vacuum vessel using, for example, an oil diffusion pump or a rotary pump, or sufficiently exhausted once by an ion pump or the like. It can also be obtained by introducing a gas of an appropriate organic substance into a vacuum. The preferable gas pressure of the organic substance at this time varies depending on the above-described application form, the shape of the vacuum vessel, the type of the organic substance, and the like, and is appropriately set according to the case. Suitable organic materials include
Aliphatic hydrocarbons such as alkanes, alkenes, and alkynes, aromatic hydrocarbons, alcohols, aldehydes, ketones, amines, phenols, carboxylic acids, and organic acids such as sulfonic acids can be mentioned. the methane, ethane, propane C _n H _2n such _{+ 2} represented by saturated hydrocarbons, ethylene, propylene C _n H _2n such unsaturated hydrocarbon represented by composition formula such as benzene, toluene, methanol, Ethanol, formaldehyde, acetaldehyde, acetone, methyl ethyl ketone, methylamine,
Ethylamine, phenol, formic acid, acetic acid, propionic acid and the like can be used. By this treatment, carbon or a carbon compound is deposited on the device from the organic substance existing in the atmosphere, and the device current If and the emission current Ie are significantly changed.

The end of the activation step is determined as appropriate while measuring the device current If and the emission current Ie. The pulse width, pulse interval, pulse crest value, and the like are set as appropriate.

Carbon and carbon compounds include, for example, graphite (so-called HOPG ', PG (GC); HOPG has a substantially complete graphite crystal structure;
G indicates that the crystal grain is about 200 angstroms and the crystal structure is slightly disordered, and GC indicates that the crystal grain is about 20 angstroms and the disorder of the crystal structure is further increased. ) And amorphous carbon (refer to amorphous carbon and a mixture of amorphous carbon and the above-mentioned graphite microcrystals), and the film thickness is preferably in the range of 500 Å or less, and more preferably in the range of 300 Å or less. Is more preferable.

(7) The electron-emitting device obtained through such a step is preferably subjected to a stabilization step. This step is a step of exhausting the organic substance in the vacuum container. It is preferable to use a vacuum exhaust device that does not use oil so that the oil generated from the device does not affect the characteristics of the element. Specifically, a vacuum exhaust device such as a sorption pump and an ion pump can be used.

In the activation step, when an oil diffusion pump or a rotary pump is used as an exhaust device and an organic gas derived from an oil component generated therefrom is used, it is necessary to keep the partial pressure of this component as low as possible. . The partial pressure of the organic component in the vacuum vessel is preferably 1 × 10 ⁻⁸ Torr or less, more preferably 1 × 10 ⁻¹⁰ Torr or less, at a partial pressure at which the carbon and carbon compounds are not newly deposited. Further, when evacuating the inside of the vacuum vessel, it is preferable to heat the entire vacuum vessel to facilitate evacuating the organic substance molecules adsorbed on the inner wall of the vacuum vessel and the electron-emitting device. The heating conditions at this time are desirably 5 hours or more at 80 to 200 ° C., but are not particularly limited to these conditions, depending on conditions appropriately selected according to various conditions such as the size and shape of the vacuum vessel and the configuration of the electron-emitting device. Do. The pressure in the vacuum vessel needs to be as low as possible, preferably 1 to 3 × 10 ⁻⁷ Torr or less, and more preferably 1 × 10 ⁻⁸ Torr or less.

It is preferable that the atmosphere at the time of driving after the stabilization process is performed is the same as that at the end of the stabilization treatment, but the present invention is not limited to this. Even if the degree of vacuum itself is slightly reduced, sufficiently stable characteristics can be maintained.

By adopting such a vacuum atmosphere, the deposition of new carbon or carbon compound can be suppressed.
As a result, the element current If and the emission current Ie are stabilized.
The basic characteristics of the electron-emitting device to which the present invention can be applied obtained through the above-described steps will be described with reference to FIGS.

FIG. 7 is a schematic diagram showing an example of a vacuum processing apparatus. This vacuum processing apparatus also has a function as a measurement and evaluation apparatus. In FIG. 7 as well, the same parts as those shown in FIG. 4 are denoted by the same reference numerals as in FIG. In FIG. 7, 55 is a vacuum vessel, and 56 is an exhaust pump. An electron-emitting device is provided in the vacuum vessel 55. That is, 1 is a substrate constituting an electron-emitting device, 2 and 3 are device electrodes, 4 is a conductive thin film, and 5 is an electron-emitting portion. 51 is a power supply for applying a device voltage Vf to the electron-emitting device, 50 is an ammeter for measuring a device current If flowing through the conductive thin film 4 between the device electrodes 2 and 3,
Reference numeral 54 denotes an anode electrode for capturing an emission current Ie emitted from the electron emission portion of the device. Reference numeral 53 denotes a high-voltage power supply for applying a voltage to the anode electrode 54, and reference numeral 52 denotes an ammeter for measuring an emission current Ie emitted from the electron emission section 5 of the device. As an example, the measurement can be performed with the voltage of the anode electrode in the range of 1 kV to 10 kV and the distance H between the anode electrode and the electron-emitting device in the range of 2 mm to 8 mm.

The vacuum vessel 55 is provided with equipment necessary for measurement in a vacuum atmosphere, such as a vacuum gauge (not shown).
The measurement and evaluation can be performed in a desired vacuum atmosphere. The exhaust pump 56 is composed of a normal high vacuum device system including a turbo pump and a rotary pump, and an ultra high vacuum device system including an ion pump and the like. The entire vacuum processing apparatus equipped with the electron source substrate shown here is
It can be heated to 200 ° C. by a heater (not shown). Therefore, by using this vacuum processing apparatus, the steps after the energization forming described above can also be performed.

FIG. 8 shows the emission current Ie, the device current If, and the device voltage V measured using the vacuum processing apparatus shown in FIG.
It is the figure which showed the relationship of f typically. In FIG. 8,
Since the emission current Ie is significantly smaller than the element current If, it is shown in arbitrary units. The vertical and horizontal axes are linear scales. As apparent from FIG. 8, the surface conduction electron-emitting device to which the present invention can be applied has three characteristic properties with respect to the emission current Ie.

That is, (i) when an element voltage higher than a certain voltage (called a threshold voltage, Vth in FIG. 8) is applied to the present element, the emission current Ie sharply increases, while the threshold voltage Ve is increased.
Below th, the emission current Ie is hardly detected. That is, a clear threshold voltage Vth for the emission current Ie
Is a non-linear element having (Ii) Since the emission current Ie depends monotonically on the device voltage Vf, the emission current Ie can be controlled by the device voltage Vf. (Iii) Anode electrode 54
Is dependent on the time for applying the device voltage Vf. That is, the amount of charge captured by the anode electrode 54 can be controlled by the time during which the device voltage Vf is applied.

As can be understood from the above description, the surface conduction electron-emitting device to which the present invention can be applied can easily control the electron emission characteristics according to the input signal. By utilizing this property, it is possible to apply to various fields such as an electron source and an image forming apparatus having a plurality of electron-emitting devices.

FIG. 8 shows an example in which the element current If monotonically increases with respect to the element voltage Vf (hereinafter referred to as “MI characteristic”). The element current If is equal to the element voltage Vf.
May exhibit a voltage control type negative resistance characteristic (hereinafter, referred to as “VCNR characteristic”) in some cases (not shown). These characteristics can be controlled by controlling the aforementioned steps.

An application example of the electron-emitting device to which the present invention can be applied will be described below. By arranging a plurality of surface conduction electron-emitting devices to which the present invention is applicable on a substrate, for example, an electron source or an image forming apparatus can be configured.

Various arrangements of the electron-emitting devices can be employed. As an example, each of a large number of electron-emitting devices arranged in parallel is connected at both ends, a large number of rows of electron-emitting devices are arranged (referred to as a row direction), and a direction perpendicular to the wiring (referred to as a column direction). There is a ladder-like arrangement in which electrons from the electron-emitting devices are controlled and driven by control electrodes (also referred to as grids) disposed above the electron-emitting devices. Separately, a plurality of electron-emitting devices are arranged in a matrix in the X and Y directions, and one of the electrodes of the plurality of electron-emitting devices arranged in the same row is commonly connected to a wiring in the X direction. One example is one in which the other of the electrodes of a plurality of electron-emitting devices arranged in the same column is commonly connected to a wiring in the Y direction. This is a so-called simple matrix arrangement. First, the simple matrix arrangement will be described in detail below.

The surface conduction electron-emitting device to which the present invention can be applied has the characteristics (i) to (iii) as described above. That is, when the electrons emitted from the surface conduction electron-emitting device are equal to or higher than the threshold voltage, they can be controlled by the peak value and the width of the pulse-like voltage applied between the opposing device electrodes. on the other hand,
Below the threshold voltage, it is hardly emitted. According to this characteristic, even when a large number of electron-emitting devices are arranged, if a pulse-like voltage is appropriately applied to each of the devices, a surface-conduction electron-emitting device is selected according to an input signal to emit electrons. You can control the amount.

Hereinafter, based on this principle, an electron source substrate obtained by disposing a plurality of electron-emitting devices to which the present invention can be applied will be described with reference to FIG. In FIG. 9, reference numeral 71 denotes an electron source substrate, 72 denotes an X-direction wiring, and 73 denotes a Y-direction wiring.
74 is a surface conduction electron-emitting device, and 75 is a connection. Note that the surface conduction electron-emitting device 74 may be of the above-described flat type or vertical type.

The m X-directional wirings 72 are DX1, DX
, DXm, and can be formed of a conductive metal or the like formed by using a vacuum deposition method, a printing method, a sputtering method, or the like. The material, thickness, and width of the wiring are appropriately designed. , DYn, DY1, DY2,.
And formed in the same manner as the X-direction wiring 72. An interlayer insulating layer (not shown) is provided between the m X-directional wirings 72 and the n Y-directional wirings 73 to electrically separate them (m and n are both Positive integer).

An interlayer insulating layer (not shown) is made of SiO ₂ or the like formed by using a vacuum deposition method, a printing method, a sputtering method, or the like. For example, it is formed in a desired shape on the entire surface or a part of the substrate 71 on which the X-directional wiring 72 is formed. In particular, the film thickness and the thickness are set so as to withstand the potential difference at the intersection of the X-directional wiring 72 and the Y-directional wiring 73. The material and manufacturing method are appropriately set. The X-direction wiring 72 and the Y-direction wiring 73 are respectively drawn out as external terminals.

A pair of electrodes (not shown) constituting the surface conduction electron-emitting device 74 are electrically connected to m X-directional wires 72 and n Y-directional wires 73 by a connection 75 made of a conductive metal or the like. Have been.

The material forming the wiring 72 and the wiring 73, the material forming the connection 75, and the material forming the pair of element electrodes may be partially or entirely the same or different from each other. Good. These materials are appropriately selected, for example, from the above-described materials for the device electrodes. When the material forming the element electrode is the same as the wiring material, the wiring connected to the element electrode can also be called an element electrode.

The X-direction wiring 72 is connected to a scanning signal applying means (not shown) for applying a scanning signal for selecting a row of the surface conduction electron-emitting devices 74 arranged in the X direction. On the other hand, a modulation signal generating means (not shown) for modulating each column of the surface conduction electron-emitting devices 74 arranged in the Y direction according to an input signal is connected to the Y-direction wiring 73. The driving voltage applied to each electron-emitting device is supplied as a difference voltage between a scanning signal and a modulation signal applied to the device.

In the above configuration, individual elements can be selected and driven independently using simple matrix wiring. An image forming apparatus configured using such an electron source having a simple matrix arrangement will be described with reference to FIGS. 10, 11, and 12. FIG. FIG. 10 is a schematic view showing an example of a display panel of the image forming apparatus, and FIG. 11 is a schematic view of a fluorescent film used in the image forming apparatus of FIG. FIG. 12 is a block diagram showing an example of a drive circuit for performing display according to an NTSC television signal.

In FIG. 10, reference numeral 71 denotes an electron source substrate on which a plurality of electron-emitting devices are arranged; 81, a rear plate on which the electron source substrate 71 is fixed; 86, a fluorescent film 8 on the inner surface of a glass substrate 83;
4 is a face plate on which a metal back 85 and the like are formed. Reference numeral 82 denotes a support frame, and a rear plate 81 and a face plate 86 are connected to the support frame 82 using frit glass or the like. Reference numeral 88 denotes an envelope, which is sealed by firing in a temperature range of 400 to 500 ° C. for 10 minutes or more in the atmosphere or nitrogen, for example.

Reference numeral 74 corresponds to the electron-emitting portion in FIG. Reference numerals 72 and 73 denote an X-direction wiring and a Y-direction wiring connected to a pair of device electrodes of the surface conduction electron-emitting device.

The envelope 88 includes the face plate 86, the support frame 82, and the rear plate 81 as described above. Since the rear plate 81 is provided mainly for the purpose of reinforcing the strength of the substrate 71, if the substrate 71 itself has sufficient strength, the separate rear plate 81 can be unnecessary. That is, the support frame 82 is directly sealed to the substrate 71, and the envelope 8 is formed by the face plate 86, the support frame 82 and the substrate 71.
8 may be configured. On the other hand, by providing a support (not shown) called a spacer between the face plate 86 and the rear plate 81, an envelope 88 having sufficient strength against atmospheric pressure can be formed.

FIG. 11 is a schematic diagram showing a fluorescent film. The fluorescent film 84 can be composed of only a phosphor in the case of monochrome. In the case of a color fluorescent film, it can be composed of a black conductive material 91 called a black stripe or a black matrix and a fluorescent material 92 depending on the arrangement of the fluorescent materials. The purpose of providing the black stripes and the black matrix is to make the color separation between the phosphors 92 of the necessary three primary color phosphors black in the case of color display so that color mixing and the like become inconspicuous.
In suppressing a decrease in contrast due to reflection of external light. As a material for the black stripe, a material which is conductive and has little light transmission and reflection can be used in addition to a commonly used material mainly containing graphite.

The method of applying the fluorescent substance to the glass substrate 83 can employ a precipitation method, a printing method or the like irrespective of monochrome or color. Usually, a metal back 85 is provided on the inner surface side of the fluorescent film 84. The purpose of providing a metal back is
The light emitted from the phosphor toward the inner surface is converted into a face plate 8.
Improve brightness by specular reflection to the 6 side, act as an electrode for applying electron beam acceleration voltage, protect phosphor from damage due to collision of negative ions generated in the envelope, etc. It is. The metal back performs a smoothing process (usually called “filming”) on the inner surface of the phosphor film after the phosphor film is formed,
Thereafter, it can be manufactured by depositing Al using vacuum evaporation or the like.

The face plate 86 further has the fluorescent film 8
A transparent electrode (not shown) may be provided on the outer surface side of the fluorescent film 84 in order to increase the conductivity of the phosphor film 84. When performing the above-described sealing, in the case of color, it is necessary to make each color phosphor correspond to the electron-emitting device, and sufficient alignment is indispensable.

The image forming apparatus shown in FIG. 10 is manufactured, for example, as follows. The envelope 88 is evacuated through an exhaust pipe (not shown) by an exhaust device that does not use oil, such as an ion pump and a sorption pump, while appropriately heating, as in the above-described stabilizing step, and is discharged at about 10 ⁻⁷ Torr. After the atmosphere is made sufficiently low in the degree of vacuum of the organic substance, sealing is performed. In order to maintain a vacuum degree after the envelope 88 is sealed, a getter process may be performed. This is because immediately before or after the sealing of the envelope 88, the heating of the envelope 88 is performed by resistance heating or high-frequency heating.
This is a process of heating a getter disposed at a predetermined position (not shown) in the inside to form a deposited film. Getter is usually Ba
Is a main component, and maintains a vacuum degree of, for example, 1 × 10 ⁻⁵ or 1 × 10 ⁻⁷ Torr by the adsorption action of the deposited film. Here, steps after the forming process of the surface conduction electron-emitting device can be appropriately set.

Next, an example of the configuration of a driving circuit for performing television display based on NTSC television signals on a display panel configured using electron sources in a simple matrix arrangement will be described with reference to FIG. . 12, 101 is an image display panel, 102 is a scanning circuit, 10
3 is a control circuit, and 104 is a shift register. 105
Is a line memory, 106 is a synchronization signal separation circuit, 107 is a modulation signal generator, and Vx and Va are DC voltage sources.

The display panel 101 has terminals Dox1 to Dox
xm, terminals Doy1 to Doyn, and a high voltage terminal Hv are connected to an external electric circuit. Terminals Dox1 to D
oxm is a scanning signal for sequentially driving an electron source provided in the display panel, that is, a group of surface conduction electron-emitting devices arranged in a matrix of M rows and N columns, one row at a time (N elements). Is applied.

A modulation signal for controlling an output electron beam of each of the surface conduction electron-emitting devices in one row selected by the scanning signal is applied to the terminals Doy1 to Doyn. The high voltage terminal Hv is supplied with a DC voltage of, for example, 10 K [V] from a DC voltage source Va, which is sufficient to excite the phosphor into an electron beam emitted from the surface conduction electron-emitting device. It is an accelerating voltage for applying energy.

The scanning circuit 102 will be described. This circuit includes M switching elements inside (in the drawing, S1 to Sm are schematically shown). Each switching element selects either the output voltage of the DC voltage source Vx or 0 [V] (ground level),
It is electrically connected to terminals Dox1 to Doxm of the display panel 101. Each switching element of S1 to Sm is
It operates based on a control signal Tscan output from the control circuit 103, and can be configured by combining switching elements such as FETs, for example.

In the case of the present embodiment, the DC voltage source Vx uses a driving voltage applied to an element that is not scanned based on the characteristics (electron emission threshold voltage) of the surface conduction type electron emission element. It is set to output a constant voltage that is equal to or lower than the voltage.

The control circuit 103 has a function of matching the operation of each unit so that appropriate display is performed based on an image signal input from the outside. The control circuit 103 sends Tscan, Tsft, and Tm to each unit based on the synchronization signal Tsync sent from the synchronization signal separation circuit 106.
ry control signals are generated.

The synchronizing signal separating circuit 106 is a circuit for separating a synchronizing signal component and a luminance signal component from an NTSC television signal input from the outside, and uses a general frequency separating (filter) circuit or the like. Can be configured. The synchronizing signal separated by the synchronizing signal separating circuit 106 includes a vertical synchronizing signal and a horizontal synchronizing signal, but is shown here as a Tsync signal for convenience of explanation. The luminance signal component of the image separated from the television signal is referred to as a DATA signal for convenience. The DATA signal is input to the shift register 104.

The shift register 104 is for serially / parallel converting the DATA signal input serially in time series for each line of an image, and is based on a control signal Tsft sent from the control circuit 103. (Ie, the control signal Tsft can be said to be a shift clock of the shift register 104). The data of one line of the image subjected to the serial / parallel conversion (corresponding to the drive data of N electron-emitting devices) is output from the shift register 104 as N parallel signals Id1 to Idn.

The line memory 105 is a storage device for storing data for one line of an image for a required time only, and stores the contents of Id1 to Idn as appropriate according to a control signal Tmry sent from the control circuit 103. The stored contents are output as I'd1 to I'dn and input to the modulation signal generator 107.

The modulation signal generator 107 outputs the image data I '
The signal source is a signal source for appropriately driving and modulating each of the surface conduction electron-emitting devices in accordance with each of d1 to I'dn, and its output signal is supplied to the surface conduction electron-emitting device in the display panel 111 through terminals Doy1 to Doyn. Applied to the emitting element.

As described above, the electron-emitting device to which the present invention can be applied has the following basic characteristics with respect to the emission current Ie. That is, a clear threshold voltage Vth is required for electron emission.
And electron emission occurs only when a voltage higher than Vth is applied. For a voltage equal to or higher than the electron emission threshold, the emission current also changes according to the change in the voltage applied to the device. From this, when applying a pulsed voltage to this element,
For example, when a voltage lower than the electron emission threshold is applied, electron emission does not occur, but when a voltage higher than the electron emission threshold is applied, an electron beam is output. At this time, the pulse peak value V
By changing m, the intensity of the output electron beam can be controlled. In addition, it is possible to control the total amount of charges of the output electron beam by changing the pulse width Pw.

Therefore, a voltage modulation method, a pulse width modulation method, or the like can be adopted as a method of modulating the electron-emitting device in accordance with an input signal. When implementing the voltage modulation method, a circuit of a voltage modulation method that generates a voltage pulse of a fixed length and modulates the peak value of the pulse appropriately according to input data is used as the modulation signal generator 107. be able to.

When implementing the pulse width modulation method,
As the modulation signal generator 107, a pulse width modulation type circuit that generates a voltage pulse having a constant peak value and appropriately modulates the width of the voltage pulse according to input data can be used.

The shift register 104 and the line memory 10
5 can be either a digital signal type or an analog signal type. This is because the serial / parallel conversion and storage of the image signal may be performed at a predetermined speed.

When the digital signal type is used, it is necessary to convert the output signal DATA of the synchronizing signal separating circuit 106 into a digital signal. For this purpose, an A / D converter may be provided at the output of the synchronizing signal 106. In connection with this, the line memory 10
Depending on whether the output signal of 5 is a digital signal or an analog signal,
The circuit used for modulation signal generator 107 is slightly different. That is, in the case of the voltage modulation method using a digital signal, for example, a D / A conversion circuit is used as the modulation signal generator 107, and an amplification circuit and the like are added as necessary. In the case of the pulse width modulation method, the modulation signal generator 107 includes, for example, a high-speed oscillator, a counter for counting the number of waves output from the oscillator, and a comparator for comparing the output value of the counter with the output value of the memory. (Comparator) is used. If necessary, an amplifier for amplifying the voltage of the pulse width modulated signal output from the comparator to the drive voltage of the surface conduction electron-emitting device can be added.

In the case of the voltage modulation method using an analog signal, an amplification circuit using, for example, an operational amplifier can be used as the modulation signal generator 107, and a level shift circuit and the like can be added as necessary. In the case of the pulse width modulation method, for example, a voltage-controlled oscillation circuit (VCO) can be employed, and an amplifier for amplifying the voltage up to the drive voltage of the surface conduction electron-emitting device can be added as necessary.

In the image display apparatus to which the present invention can be applied, which has such a configuration, by applying a voltage to each electron-emitting device via external terminals Dox1 to Doxm and Doy1 to Doyn, the electron-emitting device can emit electrons. Occurs. A high voltage is applied to the metal back 95 or a transparent electrode (not shown) via the high voltage terminal Hv to accelerate the electron beam. The accelerated electrons collide with the fluorescent film 84 and emit light to form an image.

The configuration of the image forming apparatus described here is based on the present invention.
1 is an example of an image forming apparatus to which the present invention can be applied.
Various modifications are possible based on the technical idea. For input signal
As for the NTSC system, the input signal is limited to this.
Not PAL, SECAM, etc.of
Besides, a TV signal composed of a larger number of scanning lines (for example,
For example, high-definition TV) systems such as the MUSE system
Can be adopted.

Next, the ladder-type arrangement of the electron source and the image forming apparatus will be described with reference to FIGS. FIG.
FIG. 3 is a schematic diagram illustrating an example of an electron source having a ladder-type arrangement. In FIG. 13, reference numeral 110 denotes an electron source substrate, and 111 denotes an electron-emitting device. 112, Dx1 to Dx10 are common wirings for connecting the electron-emitting devices 111. A plurality of electron-emitting devices 111 are arranged on the substrate 110 in parallel in the X direction (this is called an element row). A plurality of the element rows are arranged to constitute an electron source. By applying a drive voltage between the common wires of each element row, each element row can be driven independently. That is, a voltage equal to or higher than the electron emission threshold is applied to the element row where the electron beam is to be emitted.
A voltage lower than the electron emission threshold is applied to the element rows that do not emit an electron beam. Common wiring Dx2 between each element row
For Dx9, for example, Dx2 and Dx3 can be made the same wiring.

FIG. 14 is a schematic diagram showing an example of a panel structure in an image forming apparatus having a ladder-type electron source. 120 is a grid electrode, 121 is a hole for passing electrons, 122 is Dox1, Dox2, ..., Dox
m outside the container. Reference numeral 123 denotes an external terminal composed of G1, G2,..., Gn connected to the grid electrode 120, and reference numeral 124 denotes an electron source substrate in which the common wiring between the element rows is the same.

In FIG. 14, the same portions as those shown in FIGS. 10 and 13 are denoted by the same reference numerals as those shown in these drawings. The image forming apparatus shown here and FIG.
A major difference from the image forming apparatus having the simple matrix arrangement shown in FIG. 0 is whether or not the grid electrode 120 is provided between the electron source substrate 110 and the face plate 86.

In FIG. 14, a grid electrode 120 is provided between the substrate 110 and the face plate 86. The grid electrode 120 is for modulating the electron beam emitted from the surface conduction electron-emitting device,
One circular opening 121 is provided for each element in order to allow an electron beam to pass through a striped electrode provided orthogonal to the ladder-shaped element rows. The shape and installation position of the grid are not limited to those shown in FIG. For example, a large number of passage openings may be provided in a mesh shape as openings, and a grid may be provided around or near the surface conduction electron-emitting device.

The outer container terminal 122 and the grid outer terminal 123 are electrically connected to a control circuit (not shown).

In the image forming apparatus of this embodiment, a modulation signal for one line of an image is simultaneously applied to the grid electrode rows in synchronization with sequentially driving (scanning) the element rows one by one. This makes it possible to control the irradiation of each electron beam to the phosphor and display an image one line at a time.

The image forming apparatus of the present invention can be used not only as a display device for a television broadcast, a display device such as a video conference system or a computer, but also as an image forming device as an optical printer using a photosensitive drum or the like. Can be used.

[0111]

【Example】

[Embodiment 1] FIG. 4A shows an electron-emitting device of this embodiment.
Electron-emitting devices of the type shown in (device plan view) and (b) (device cross-sectional view) were formed. The manufacturing method is described below with reference to FIGS.

Using a quartz substrate as the insulating substrate 151,
After this was sufficiently washed with an organic solvent, electrodes 152 and 153 were formed on the surface of the substrate 151 (FIG. 15A). Gold was used as the electrode material. The electrode interval L is 10 micrometers, the electrode length W is 500 micrometers,
The thickness d was 1000 angstroms.

Next, an organic palladium thin film was applied between the electrodes using a droplet applying means by a bubble jet (BJ) method, and then heated at 350 ° C. for 10 minutes to form palladium oxide (PdO) fine particles (PdO). A fine particle film (conductive thin film) 154 having an average particle diameter of 20 Å was formed. At this time, the radius of the conductive thin film 154 was set to 80 μm, and the thin film was disposed almost at the center of the electrodes 152 and 153 (FIG. 15B). The sheet resistance of the conductive thin film 154 was 3 × 10 ⁴ Ω / □.

Here, the thickness and the shape of the organic palladium thin film formed by the bubble jet method are controlled by the droplet concentration, the number of overstrikes, and the ejection conditions. As shown in (b), the dots were shaped like dots, and often had a film thickness distribution from the center toward the periphery of the dots. The film thickness was 15 nm at the center and became thinner toward the periphery.

(3) Next, a forming step which is a feature of the present invention will be described with reference to FIG. The energization process called energization forming includes the device electrodes 152 and 153.
In the meantime, power is supplied from a power supply (not shown) to form a portion 155 having a changed structure in a part of the conductive thin film 154 (FIG. 15C). Shown in

T1 and T2 in FIG. 2 are the pulse width and pulse interval of the voltage waveform, where T1 is 1 millisecond, T2
Was set to 10 milliseconds, and the peak value of the triangular wave (peak voltage of the energizing forming pulse) was increased in steps of 0.1 V and applied in a vacuum atmosphere of 10 ^-6 Torr. The peak value of the triangular wave and the current value at the peak value are shown in FIG. The peak value Imax of the peak value of the current was 8 mA, and the voltage Vmax at this time was 8 V. Forming was terminated when the current reached 2 mA, 25% of Imax. Here, an unformed element for monitoring the resistance value of the conductive thin film at the time of the reduction process described later is left.

(4) Then, a reduction treatment was performed for 30 minutes in a reducing gas atmosphere, here, a 2% hydrogen atmospheric pressure atmosphere diluted with nitrogen. In this method, an element is mounted in a sealed reduction processing container 157, and processing is performed until the entire surface of the conductive thin film 154 is completely reduced (FIG. 15D). The above-described monitor element has a sheet resistance of 3 × 10 ^2. Ω / □.

(5) Finally, as shown in FIG. 15 (e), the conductive thin film after reduction is subjected to energization forming again. The contents of the process are performed in the same manner as the first time. The current value when the maximum voltage of the triangular wave is applied during the peak pulse interval T2,
The device current is measured at a voltage that does not locally destroy or deform the conductive thin film 154, for example, a voltage of about 0.1 V,
The resistance value was determined, and when the resistance was 1 M ohm or more, the energization forming was terminated. Here, the portion where the film thickness was thin and the resistance was relatively high was reduced by the reduction, and the current flowed. Therefore, the forming was completed at the low voltage of the peak voltage Vmax of 5 V and the peak of the current peak value Imax of 10 mA. After forming, the conductive thin film 154 is formed.
When observed, a crack 155 serving as an electron-emitting portion was formed across the conductive thin film from end to end (FIG. 15E).

With respect to the device fabricated as described above, a device voltage was applied between the devices, and a device current If and an emission current Ie flowing at that time were measured to obtain a reactive current (%). As a result, when the device voltage was 16 V, the device current was 2.5 mA, the emission current was 4.0 μA, the electron emission efficiency η was 0.16%, and the reactive current was 1%.
100 pieces were manufactured with good reproducibility and all the reactive currents were suppressed to 2% or less.

The measuring method is as follows. (Measurement Method) FIG. 7 is a schematic configuration diagram of a measurement evaluation device. In FIG. 7, 1 is an insulating substrate, 2 and 3 are electrodes, 5 is an electron emission region, 4 is a conductive film for obtaining electrical connection, 51 is a power supply for applying a voltage to the device, and 50 is a device current. An ammeter for measuring If, 54 is an anode electrode for measuring the emission current Ie generated by the element, 53 is a high-voltage power supply for applying a voltage to the anode electrode 54, and 52 is for measuring the emission current. It is an ammeter. Here, the element current is a current amount measured by the ammeter 50, and the emission current is a current amount measured by the ammeter 52. In measuring the device current and the emission current of the electron-emitting device, a power supply 51 and an ammeter 50 are connected to the device currents 2 and 3, and a power supply 5 is provided above the electron-emitting device.
The anode electrode 54 connected to the current meter 3 and the ammeter 52 is arranged, and the measurement is performed in an environment with a degree of vacuum of 1 × 10 ⁻⁵ torr. From the measurement results, the reactive current is, as shown in FIG.
It is calculated by the reactive current = (1x / If ') × 100 [%]. Here, If 'is an element current value at the drive voltage Vd, and Ix is a linear drive voltage Vd connecting the element current value when the element voltage is zero and the element current value at the element voltage Ve at which element emission starts. Is the extrapolated value at.

[Embodiment 2] An image forming apparatus using the surface conduction electron-emitting device of the first embodiment will be described below with reference to the drawings. FIG. 17 shows a plan view of a part of the electron source. Also,
FIG. 18 shows a cross-sectional view taken along the line AA ′ in the figure. However, FIG.
7, the same symbols in FIGS. 18 and 19 indicate the same symbols. Here, reference numeral 71 denotes a substrate, 72 denotes an image forming apparatus described in the embodiment, X-direction wiring (also referred to as lower wiring) corresponding to Dxm in FIG. 10, and 73 denotes Y-direction wiring (also referred to as upper wiring) corresponding to Dyn in FIG. ), 4 is a conductive thin film, 2,
3 is a device electrode, 181 is an interlayer insulating layer, and 182 is a contact hole for electrical connection between the device electrode 5 and the lower wiring 72. In this embodiment, 300 X-directional wirings and 100 Y-directional wirings are formed, and 30,000 surface conduction electron-emitting devices are provided. Next, the manufacturing method will be specifically described with reference to FIG.

Step-a On a substrate 71 in which a 0.5 μm thick silicon oxide film is formed on a cleaned blue plate glass by a sputtering method, 50 ° Cr thick and 6000 ° thick Au are sequentially deposited by vacuum evaporation. After lamination, a photoresist (AZ1370 Hoechst) is spin-coated with a spinner and baked, and then a photomask image is exposed and developed to form a resist pattern of the lower wiring 72, and the Au / Cr deposited film is wet-etched. Thus, the lower wiring 72 having a desired shape was formed (FIG. 19).
(A)).

Step-b Next, an interlayer insulating layer 181 made of a silicon oxide film having a thickness of 1.0 μm was deposited by RF sputtering (FIG. 19).
(B)).

Step-c The contact hole 1 was formed in the silicon oxide film deposited in the step b.
Create a photoresist pattern to form 82,
Using this as a mask, the interlayer insulating layer 181 was etched to form a contact hole 182 (FIG. 19C).
Etching is performed using RIE (Rea) using CF ₄ and H ₂ gas.
active ion etching) method.

Step-d Thereafter, a photoresist (RD-2000N-41 manufactured by Hitachi Chemical Co., Ltd.) is formed with a pattern to be a gap G between the device electrode 2 and the device electrode. 1000 Ｎｉ of Ni was sequentially deposited. The photoresist pattern is dissolved with an organic solvent, the Ni / Ti deposited film is lifted on, the element electrode interval G is set to 20 microns,
The device electrodes 2 and 3 were formed so that the width W of the device electrode was 300 microns (FIG. 19D).

Step-e After forming a photoresist pattern of the upper wiring 73 on the device electrodes 2 and 3, the thickness of Ti is set to 50 ° and the thickness is set to 5000 °.
Are sequentially deposited by vacuum evaporation, and unnecessary portions are removed by lift-off to form an upper wiring 73 having a desired shape (FIG. 20E).

Step-f Next, a conductive thin film 4 was formed using a mask (not shown) (FIG. 20 (f)). That is, the inter-element electrode gap G
And a mask having an opening in the vicinity thereof. A Cr film 191 having a thickness of 1000 Å is deposited and patterned by vacuum evaporation using this mask, and organic Pd (ccp
4230 Okuno Pharmaceutical Co., Ltd.) was spin-coated with a spinner and heated and baked at 300 ° C. for 10 minutes. The thus formed conductive thin film 4 composed of fine particles containing PdOx as a main component had a thickness of 100 angstroms and a sheet resistance value of 5 × 10 4 Ω / □. The fine particle film described here is, as described above, a film in which a plurality of fine particles are aggregated, and as its fine structure, not only a state in which the fine particles are individually dispersed and arranged, but also the fine particles are adjacent to each other or overlap each other. It refers to a film in a state (including an island shape), and the particle size refers to the diameter of fine particles whose particle shape can be recognized in the state.

Step-g The Cr film 191 and the baked conductive thin film 4 were etched with an acid etchant to form a desired pattern (FIG. 20 (g)).

Step-h A pattern was formed such that a resist was applied to portions other than the contact hole 182, and a Ti film having a thickness of 50 ° and a Au film having a thickness of 5000 ° were sequentially deposited by vacuum evaporation. Unnecessary portions were removed by lift-off to bury the contact holes 182 (FIG. 20H).

Through the above steps, the lower wiring 72, the interlayer insulating layer 181, the upper wiring 73, the element electrode 2,
3. Conductive thin film 4 and the like were formed.

Next, an example in which a display device is configured using the electron source manufactured as described above will be described with reference to FIGS. The substrate 71 on which a large number of planar surface-conduction electron-emitting devices are manufactured as described above is mounted on the rear plate 81.
After being fixed on the upper surface, a face plate 86 (formed by forming a fluorescent film 84 and a metal back 85 on the inner surface of a glass substrate 83) is disposed 5 mm above the substrate 71 via a support frame 82. , A frit glass is applied to the joint between the support frame 82 and the rear plate 81 and sealed by baking at 400 ° C. for 15 minutes in the atmosphere (FIG. 1).
0). The fixing of the substrate 71 to the rear plate 81 was also performed with frit glass. In FIG. 10, 74 is an electron-emitting device, and 72 and 73 are wirings in the X and Y directions, respectively.

The phosphor film 84 is made of only a phosphor in the case of monochrome, but in this embodiment, the phosphor is formed in a stripe shape, a black stripe is formed first, and each color phosphor is applied to the gap. Then, a fluorescent film 84 was manufactured. As the material for the black stripe, a material mainly containing graphite, which is generally used, was used. A slurry method was used to apply the phosphor onto the glass substrate 83.

A metal back 85 is usually provided on the inner side of the fluorescent film 84. The metal back was prepared by performing a smoothing process (usually called filming) on the inner surface of the fluorescent film 84 after the fluorescent film was formed, and then performing vacuum deposition of Al.

The face plate 86 is further provided with a fluorescent film 8.
In some cases, a transparent electrode (not shown) is provided on the outer surface of the fluorescent film 84 in order to increase the conductivity of No. 4, but was omitted in this embodiment because sufficient conductivity was obtained only with the metal back.

When the above-mentioned sealing was performed, in the case of color, the phosphors of each color had to correspond to the electron-emitting devices, so that sufficient alignment was performed.

The atmosphere in the glass container completed as described above is exhausted by a vacuum pump through an exhaust pipe (not shown), and after reaching a sufficient degree of vacuum, the external terminals Dox1 to Dox1 to D4
A voltage is applied between the electrodes 2 and 3 of the electron-emitting device 74 through oxm and Doy1 to Doyn, and the electron-emitting portion (155 in FIG. 15) is connected to the conductive thin film (15 in FIG. 15) as in the first embodiment.
4) was produced by forming processing. FIG. 2 shows a voltage waveform of the forming process.

In FIG. 2, T1 and T2 are the pulse width and pulse interval of the voltage waveform, where T1 is 1 millisecond, T2
Was set to 10 milliseconds, and the peak value of the triangular wave (the peak voltage of the energizing forming pulse) was increased in steps of 0.1 V and applied under a vacuum atmosphere of 10 ^-6 torr.

FIG. 3 shows the peak value of the triangular wave and the current value at the peak value. The peak value Imax of the peak value of the current per element is 10 mA, and the voltage Vmax at this time is 12 V
It became. The end of forming is 20 for Imax
% Of 1.4 mA. Here, an unformed element for monitoring the resistance value of the conductive thin film at the time of the reduction process described later is left.

Then, as a reducing gas atmosphere, 2% hydrogen diluted with nitrogen was introduced into the glass container to atmospheric pressure, and a reduction treatment was performed for 30 minutes. The above-mentioned monitor element had a sheet resistance of 3 × 10 ² Ω / □.

Then, finally, the conductive thin film after reduction was subjected to energization forming again. The content of the process is the same as the first time. The element current is measured at a voltage at which the current value when the maximum voltage of the triangular wave is applied during the peak pulse interval T2 does not locally destroy or deform the conductive thin film 4, for example, a voltage of about 0.1 V, and the resistance value is measured. Was determined, and when the resistance was 1 M ohm or more, the energization forming was terminated.

Before the reduction treatment, the resistance of the PdO fine particle film including the electron-emitting portion itself was 20 kΩ, and after the reduction treatment, the resistance of the PdO fine particle film was 1.45 kΩ. Since the current starts to flow, the forming is completed at a low voltage of a peak voltage Vmax of 6 V and a peak Imax of 3.3 mA per element of the current peak value.

After the reduction was performed as described above, the forming was performed again, and the electron-emitting device 74 was manufactured.

Next, an exhaust pipe (not shown) was welded by heating with a gas burner at a degree of vacuum of about 10 −6 Torr, and the envelope was sealed.

Finally, in order to maintain the degree of vacuum after sealing,
Getter processing was performed. In this method, a getter disposed at a predetermined position (not shown) in the image forming apparatus was heated by a heating method such as high-frequency heating or the like just before sealing to form a deposited film. The getter was mainly composed of Ba or the like.

In order to grasp the characteristics of the flat surface-conduction type electron-emitting device manufactured in the above steps,
L and W of the plane type surface conduction electron-emitting device shown in FIG.
Prepare a standard comparative sample similar to that of
The measurement of the electron emission characteristics was performed using the above-described measurement and evaluation apparatus of FIG. The measurement conditions of the comparative sample were as follows: the distance between the anode electrode and the electron-emitting device was 4 mm, the potential of the anode electrode was 1 kV, and the degree of vacuum in the vacuum device when measuring the electron emission characteristics was 1 × 10 −6 torr. . When a device voltage was applied between the electrodes 5 and 6 of the comparative sample and the device current If and emission current Ie flowing at that time were measured, current-voltage characteristics as shown in FIG. 8 were obtained.

In this device, an emission current Ie is rapidly observed from an element voltage of about 9 V. At an element voltage of 16 V, the element current If becomes 2.0 mA and the emission current Ie becomes 3.6 μA.
The variation range of Ie and If between the devices was 10% or less. In addition, the reactive current was suppressed to 2% or less for all 30,000 elements.

Next, in order to display the display panel 121 formed by using the electron sources having the simple matrix arrangement described above in accordance with the TV signal of the NTSC system, the driving circuit of FIG. Displayed. Note that the pulse width modulation method was used as the modulation method of the display image in the present embodiment.

In the image forming apparatus suitable for the present invention completed as described above, each electron-emitting device (see FIG. 10)
By applying a voltage through the external terminals Dox1 to Doxm and Doy1 to Doyn, electrons are emitted, and a high voltage of 10 kV is applied to the metal back 85 or a transparent electrode (not shown) through the high voltage terminal Hv. By accelerating the beam, colliding with the fluorescent film 84, and exciting and emitting light, a good image was displayed with low voltage driving and low power consumption.

As described above, by the forming before and after the reduction treatment of the present invention, an electron source that can be driven with low power consumption and a uniform image forming apparatus with a small luminance distribution using the same can be realized.

[Embodiment 3] FIG. 21 shows image information provided from various image information sources such as television broadcasting on a display panel using a surface conduction electron-emitting device according to the present invention as an electron beam source. FIG. 3 is a diagram showing an example of a display device configured to display a character string. In the figure, 200 is a display panel, 201 is a display panel driving circuit, 202 is a display controller, 203 is a multiplexer, 204 is a decoder, 20
5 is an input / output interface circuit, 206 is a CPU, 2
07 is an image generation circuit, 208, 209 and 210
Is an image memory interface circuit, 211 is an image input interface circuit, 212 and 213 are TV signal receiving circuits, and 214 is an input unit. When the present display device receives a signal containing both video information and audio information, such as a television signal, it naturally reproduces the audio simultaneously with the display of the video. Receiving, separating, playing, processing,
A description of a circuit related to storage, a speaker, and the like is omitted. Hereinafter, the function of each unit will be described along the flow of the image signal.

First, the TV signal receiving circuit 213 is a circuit for receiving a TV image signal transmitted using a wireless transmission system such as radio waves or spatial optical communication. The format of the received TV signal is not particularly limited, and may be, for example, various systems such as the NTSC system, the PAL system, and the SECAM system. Further, a TV signal (for example, a so-called high-definition TV including the MUSE system) composed of a larger number of scanning lines than the above is suitable for taking advantage of the display panel suitable for a large area and a large number of pixels. Signal source. TV received by the TV signal receiving circuit 213
The signal is output to the decoder 204.

The TV signal receiving circuit 212 is a circuit for receiving a TV image signal transmitted using a wired transmission system such as a coaxial cable or an optical fiber.
As with the TV signal receiving circuit 213, the type of the TV signal to be received is not particularly limited, and the TV signal received by this circuit is also output to the decoder 204. The image input interface circuit 211 is a circuit for capturing an image signal supplied from an image input device such as a TV camera or an image reading scanner. The captured image signal is output to the decoder 204. The image memory interface circuit 210 is a circuit for capturing an image signal stored in a video tape recorder (hereinafter abbreviated as VTR). The captured image signal is output to the decoder 204. The image memory interface circuit 209 is a circuit for capturing an image signal stored in a video disk, and the captured image signal is output to the decoder 204. The image memory interface circuit 208 is a circuit for taking in an image signal from a device storing still image data, such as a so-called still image disk, and the taken still image data is input to the decoder 204.

The input / output interface circuit 205 is a circuit for connecting the present display device to an external computer, a computer network, or an output device such as a printer. In addition to inputting and outputting image data and character / graphic information, control signals and numerical data can be input and output between the CPU 206 included in the display device and the outside in some cases.

The image generating circuit 207 displays image data and character / graphic information input from the outside via the input / output interface circuit 205 or display image data based on image data or character / graphic information output from the CPU 206. Is a circuit for generating. Inside this circuit, for example, a rewritable memory for storing image data and character / graphic information, a read-only memory storing an image pattern corresponding to a character code, a processor for performing image processing, etc. And other circuits necessary for generating an image. The display image data generated by this circuit is output to the decoder 204, but may be output to an external computer network or printer via the input / output interface circuit 205 in some cases.

The CPU 206 mainly performs operations related to operation control of the display device and generation, selection, and editing of a display image. For example, a control signal is output to the multiplexer 203, and image signals to be displayed on the display panel are appropriately selected or combined. In this case, the display panel controller 20 is controlled according to the image signal to be displayed.
A control signal is generated for the display device 2 to appropriately control the operation of the display device such as a screen display frequency, a scanning method (for example, interlaced or non-interlaced), and the number of scanning lines on one screen. Further, image data or character / graphic information is directly output to the image generation circuit 207, or an external computer or memory is accessed via the input / output interface circuit 205 to output image data or character / graphic information. input. The CPU 206 may, of course, be involved in work for other purposes. For example,
It may be directly related to the function of generating and processing information, such as a personal computer or a word processor, or may be connected to an external computer network via the input / output interface circuit 205 as described above, for example, to perform numerical calculations. The work may be performed in cooperation with an external device.

The input unit 214 is used by a user to input commands, programs, data, and the like to the CPU 206. For example, in addition to a keyboard and a mouse,
Various input devices such as a joystick, a barcode reader, and a voice recognition device can be used.

The decoder 204 is provided with
This is a circuit for inversely converting various image signals input from 3 into three primary color signals, or luminance signals and I signals and Q signals. As shown by a dotted line in FIG.
It is desirable to provide an image memory inside. this is,
This is because, for example, a television signal that requires an image memory when performing inverse conversion, such as the MUSE method. Further, the provision of the image memory facilitates the display of a still image, or the image generation circuit 2
This is because there is an advantage that image processing and editing including image thinning, interpolation, enlargement, reduction, and composition can be easily performed in cooperation with the image processing unit 07 and the CPU 206.

The multiplexer 203 is connected to the CPU 20.
The display image is appropriately selected based on the control signal input from the control unit 6. That is, the multiplexer 203 selects a desired image signal from the inversely converted image signals input from the decoder 204 and outputs the selected image signal to the drive circuit 201. In that case, by switching and selecting an image signal within one screen display time, it is possible to divide one screen into a plurality of areas and display different images depending on the areas, as in a so-called multi-screen TV. .

The display panel controller 2
Reference numeral 02 denotes a circuit for controlling the operation of the drive circuit 201 based on a control signal input from the CPU 206. First, as a signal related to the basic operation of the display panel, a signal for controlling an operation sequence of a power supply (not shown) for driving the display panel is output to the drive circuit 201. In addition, as a signal related to the display panel driving method, a signal for controlling, for example, a screen display frequency and a scanning method (for example, interlace or non-interlace) is output to the drive circuit 201. In some cases, a control signal related to image quality adjustment such as brightness, contrast, color tone, and sharpness of a display image may be output to the drive circuit 201. The drive circuit 201 is a circuit for generating a drive signal to be applied to the display panel 200, and operates based on an image signal input from the multiplexer 203 and a control signal input from the display panel controller 202. Is what you do.

The function of each section has been described above. With the configuration illustrated in FIG. 21, in the present display device, image information input from various image information sources can be displayed on the display panel 200. That is, various image signals including television broadcasting are transmitted to the decoder 2.
After the inverse conversion in 04, the signal is appropriately selected in the multiplexer 203 and input to the drive circuit 201. On the other hand, the display controller 202 generates a control signal for controlling the operation of the drive circuit 201 according to the image signal to be displayed. The drive circuit 201 applies a drive signal to the display panel 200 based on the image signal and the control signal. Thereby, the display panel 200
Displays an image. A series of these operations is C
It is totally controlled by the PU 206.

In the present display device, the image memory built in the decoder 204 and the image generation circuit 207
In addition to displaying the information selected from among the information, the image information to be displayed, such as enlargement, reduction, rotation, movement, edge enhancement, thinning, interpolation, color conversion, image aspect ratio conversion, etc. It is also possible to perform image editing such as image processing such as combining, erasing, connecting, exchanging, and fitting. Although not specifically described in the description of the present embodiment, a dedicated circuit for processing and editing audio information may be provided as in the above-described image processing and image editing. Therefore, the present display device can be used as a display device for television broadcasting, a terminal device for a video conference, an image editing device for handling still images and moving images, a computer terminal device, an office terminal device including a word processor, a game machine, and the like. It is possible to have a single function, and it has a very wide range of applications for industrial or consumer use.

FIG. 21 shows only an example of the configuration of a display device using a display panel using a display conduction electron-emitting device as an electron beam source, and the present invention is not limited to this. Needless to say. For example, among the components shown in FIG. 21, circuits relating to functions that are unnecessary for the intended purpose may be omitted. Conversely, additional components may be added depending on the purpose of use. For example, when the present display device is applied as a videophone, it is preferable to add a transmission / reception circuit including a television camera, an audio microphone, an illuminator, and a modem to the components.

In the present display device, the depth of the display device can be reduced particularly because the display panel using the surface conduction electron-emitting device as an electron beam source can be easily made thin. In addition, since the display panel using the surface conduction electron-emitting device as the electron beam source has high brightness and excellent viewing angle characteristics, this display device can display an image full of a sense of reality with good visibility. is there. In addition, since the manufacturing method of the present invention makes it possible to manufacture a beam source that realizes uniform electron emission characteristics and low power consumption driving, a uniform, bright, high-quality color flat TV with low power consumption is realized. In addition, when manufacturing a surface conduction electron-emitting device, a printing method having a relatively large film thickness distribution,
Since large-area and mass-production techniques such as the ink-jet method and bubble jet method have become available, a large-screen image forming apparatus which is full of realism and powerful can be easily manufactured.

[0164]

As described above, according to the present invention,
The production yield and power consumption of the electron-emitting device can be reduced, and a low-power-consumption electron source and a high-quality image display device using the same can be realized. Furthermore,
The formation of the conductive thin film that constitutes the element can be mass-produced by printing, bubble jet method, ink jet method, spray coating method and the like.

[Brief description of the drawings]

FIG. 1 is a schematic sectional view showing a method for manufacturing a basic surface conduction electron-emitting device according to the present invention.

FIG. 2 is a diagram showing an example of a voltage waveform of energization forming suitable for the present invention.

FIG. 3 is a diagram showing a relationship between a voltage peak value and a current peak value of energization forming suitable for the present invention.

FIGS. 4A and 4B are a schematic plan view and a sectional view showing a configuration of a basic surface conduction electron-emitting device suitable for the present invention.

FIG. 5 is a schematic sectional view showing the configuration of a basic vertical surface conduction electron-emitting device suitable for the present invention.

FIG. 6 is a diagram illustrating a manufacturing method according to an embodiment of the present invention.

FIG. 7 is a schematic configuration diagram of a measurement evaluation device for measuring electron emission characteristics.

FIG. 8 is a graph showing a typical example of the relationship between the emission current Ie, the device current If, and the device voltage Vf of the surface conduction electron-emitting device of the present invention.

FIG. 9 is a schematic diagram illustrating an electron source having a simple matrix arrangement to which the present invention can be applied.

FIG. 10 is a schematic configuration diagram of a display panel of an image forming apparatus using an electron source having a simple matrix arrangement to which the present invention can be applied.

11 is a diagram showing a fluorescent film applicable to the panel of FIG.

FIG. 12 illustrates an image forming apparatus to which the present invention can be applied.
It is a block diagram of the drive circuit of the example which performs a display according to the television signal of C system.

FIG. 13 is a view showing an electron source having a ladder arrangement to which the present invention can be applied.

FIG. 14 is a schematic configuration diagram of a display panel of an image forming apparatus using an electron source having a ladder arrangement to which the present invention can be applied.

FIG. 15 is a diagram showing an example of a method for manufacturing a surface conduction electron-emitting device suitable for the present invention to which the present invention can be applied.

FIG. 16 is a graph showing a typical example of the relationship between the emission current Ie, the device current If, and the device voltage Vf of the surface conduction electron-emitting device of the present invention.

FIG. 17 is a plan view of a part of an electron source having a simple matrix arrangement to which the present invention can be applied.

18 is a sectional view taken along line A-A 'in FIG.

FIG. 19 is a diagram illustrating a method of manufacturing an electron source having a simple matrix arrangement to which the present invention can be applied.

FIG. 20 is a diagram showing a method of manufacturing an electron source having a simple matrix arrangement to which the present invention can be applied.

FIG. 21 is a diagram illustrating an example of a display device using an image forming apparatus to which the present invention can be applied.

FIG. 22 is a plan view of a conventional surface conduction electron-emitting device formed by forming and an equivalent circuit diagram of the device during forming.

FIG. 23 is a view showing a conventional surface conduction electron-emitting device.

[Explanation of symbols]

1: Substrate, 2, 3: Device electrode, 4: Conductive thin film, 5: Electron emitting portion, 21: Step formation portion, 50: Device current If flowing through conductive thin film 4 between device electrodes 2, 3 is measured. 51: a power supply for applying the device voltage Vf to the electron-emitting device, 52: an ammeter for measuring the emission current Ie emitted from the electron-emitting portion of the device, 53: to the anode electrode 74 A high-voltage power supply for applying a voltage, 54: an anode electrode for capturing an emission current Ie emitted from an electron emission portion of the element, 55: a vacuum device, 56: an exhaust pump,
71: electron source substrate, 72: X direction wiring, 73: Y direction wiring, 74: surface conduction electron-emitting device, 75: connection, 8
1: rear plate, 82: support frame, 83: glass substrate,
84: fluorescent film, 85: metal back, 86: face plate, 87: high voltage terminal, 88: envelope, 91: black conductive material, 92: phosphor, 101: display panel, 102: scanning circuit, 103: control Circuit, 104: shift register,
105: line memory, 106: synchronization signal separation circuit, 1
07: modulation signal generator, 110: electron source substrate, 111:
Electron-emitting devices, 112: common wiring for wiring the electron-emitting devices, 120: grid electrode, 121: holes for passing electrons, 122: Dox1, Dox2,.
oxm, terminal outside the container, 123: grid electrode 12
, Gn connected to 0, external terminals composed of Gn, 124: electron source substrate, 151: substrate, 152, 1
53: device electrode, 154: conductive thin film, 155: electron emitting portion, 157: reduction device, 181: interlayer insulating layer, 18
2: contact hole, 191: Cr film, 200: display panel, 201: display panel drive circuit, 202: display controller, 203: multiplexer, 204: decoder, 205: input / output interface circuit, 206: CPU, 207: image Generation circuit, 208, 209, 210: image memory interface circuit, 211: image input interface circuit,
212, 213: TV signal receiving circuit, 214: input unit,
217: Central portion of conductive thin film, 218, 219: End portion of conductive thin film, 221: Substrate, 223: Electron emitting portion, 22
4: Conductive thin film.

Claims (5)

(57) [Claims] 1. A method of manufacturing an electron-emitting device having a conductive film having an electron-emitting portion formed between electrodes, wherein the step of forming the electron-emitting portion comprises an oxide or a conductive film formed of a metal and an oxide. First energizing step for the conductive film , and the energizing step
A method for manufacturing an electron-emitting device, comprising: a reducing step of a conductive film after the step; and a second energizing step to the conductive film after the reducing step. 2. The method according to claim 1, wherein the conductive film before the reduction step is made of PdO,
SnO ₂ , In ₂ O ₃ , PbO, Sb ₂ O ₃ , MoO, Mo
Oxides selected from O ₂ , or Pd, Pt, Ru,
Ag, Au, Ti, In, Mo, Cu, Cr, Fe, Z
2. The method for manufacturing an electron-emitting device according to claim 1, wherein the method comprises a mixture of a metal selected from n, Sn, Ta, W, and Pb and the oxide. 3. The method for manufacturing an electron-emitting device according to claim 1, wherein the first energizing step ends when a current flowing through the conductive film becomes equal to or less than a predetermined current value. . 4. A method for manufacturing an electron source in which a plurality of electron-emitting devices are arranged on a substrate, wherein the electron-emitting devices are:
A method for manufacturing an electron source, wherein the method is manufactured by the method according to claim 1. 5. A method for manufacturing an image forming apparatus, comprising: an electron source having a plurality of electron-emitting devices arranged on a substrate; and an image forming member for forming an image by irradiating electrons from the electron source. A method for manufacturing an image forming apparatus, wherein the electron-emitting device is manufactured by the method according to claim 1.