Fabrication of vertical thin film FEA using ion-induced bending technique

We proposed a vertical thin film (VTF) formed by ion induced bending technique to realize a field emission display (FED). The bending technique can form micro-meter sized high-aspect ratio emitting tip from 100-nm-thick thin film by ion irradiation without thick film deposition. However, the top of the VTF becomes blunt during ion irradiation even though the film edge was very sharp before the irradiation. We demonstrate the sharpening method of the VTF using Ar ion etching. The apex radius of the VTF emitter decreased from 100 nm to 20 nm. We fabricated gated VTF emitter and confirmed electron emission from sharpened tip.