JP2000048712A - Electron source activation device and activation method - Google Patents

Abstract

PROBLEM TO BE SOLVED: To quickly activate an electron source, and make electron emission characteristics of an electron emission element after activation uniform by grouping a plurality of surface conductive type electron emission elements contained in one line of an electron source board, and simultaneously activating surface conductive type electron emission elements contained in a plurality of lines, within the range of the maximum current capacity of an activation voltage source. SOLUTION: In the activation treatment of a control part 14, plural lines which are not yet activated or whose activation is not yet finished are selected from a plurality of lines on an electron source board 10, and a voltage pulse for activation is simultaneously applied to selected plural lines. Then element current for every line is measured with an ammeter 13, and surface conductive type electron emission elements contained in plural lines are simultaneously activated within the range where the total value of current is present within the maximum current capacity value of an activation voltage source 11. The time relating to activation treatment is shortened, and time required to activation of the electron source board 10 can be shortened.

Description

DETAILED DESCRIPTION OF THE INVENTION

[0001]

BACKGROUND OF THE INVENTION 1. Field of the Invention The present invention relates to an activation device and an activation method for an electron source having a plurality of electron-emitting devices.
For example, the present invention relates to an activation apparatus and an activation method for an electron source provided with a plurality of surface conduction electron-emitting devices.

[0002]

2. Description of the Related Art Conventionally, two types of electron-emitting devices are known, namely, a thermionic electron-emitting device and a cold-cathode electron-emitting device. The cold cathode electron emission device includes a field emission type (hereinafter, referred to as “FE type”), a metal / insulating layer / metal type (hereinafter, referred to as “MIM type”), a surface conduction type electron emission device, and the like.

[0003] As an example of the FE type, W. P. Dyke &
W. W. Dolan, "Fielddemissio
n ", Advance in Electron Ph
ysics, 8, 89 (1956), or C.I. A. S
pindt, "PHYSICAL Properties"
s of thin-film fieldemis
ion cathodes with mollybde
nium cones ", J. Appl. Phys.,
47, 5248 (1976) and the like are known.

As an example of the MIM type, C.I. A. M
ead, “Operation of Tunnel-
Emission Devices ", J. Appl.
y. Phys. , $ 72,646 (1961) and the like.

Examples of the surface conduction electron-emitting device type include:
M. I. Elinson, Radio Eng. Ele
ctron Pys. , 10, 1290, (1965)
And the like.

The surface conduction electron-emitting device utilizes a phenomenon in which a thin film having a small area is formed on a substrate and a current is caused to flow in parallel with the film surface of the thin film to cause electron emission. Examples of the surface conduction electron-emitting device include a device using an SnO2 thin film by Elinson et al. Dittmer: "Thin Solid
Films ", 9, $ 717 (1972)], In2
O3 / SnO2 thin film [M. Hartwell
and C.I. G. FIG. Fonstad: "IEEE Tran
s. ED Conf. , 519 (1975)], and those based on carbon thin films [Hisashi Araki et al .: Vacuum, Vol. 26, No. 1, p. 22, page (1983)] and the like.

As a typical example of these surface conduction electron-emitting devices, the above-mentioned M.P. Figure 2 shows the device configuration of Hartwell
FIG.

FIG. 28 is a schematic view showing an example of a surface conduction electron-emitting device as a conventional example.

In FIG. 1, reference numeral 1 denotes a substrate. Reference numeral 4 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, and the electron emission portion 5 is formed by an energization process called energization forming described later. The element electrode interval L in the figure is 0.5 to 1 mm,
W 'is set at 0.1 mm.

Conventionally, in these surface-conduction type electron-emitting devices, the conductive thin film 4 is subjected to an energization process called an energization forming process before the electron emission, so that the electron emission is performed on the conductive thin film 4. It is common to form the part 5. That is, in the energization forming process,
By applying a DC voltage or a voltage having a very slow boost rate (for example, about 1 V / min) to both ends of the conductive thin film 4, the conductive thin film 4 is locally destroyed, deformed or deteriorated. Then, the electron-emitting portion 5 in an electrically high-resistance state is formed. The conductive thin film 4 has
Cracks occur partially in the energization forming. The surface conduction electron-emitting device on which the energization forming process has been performed emits electrons from the vicinity of a crack in the electron-emitting portion 5 by applying a voltage to the conductive thin film 4 and flowing a current through the device.

The above-described surface conduction electron-emitting device has a simple structure and is easy to manufacture, and thus has an advantage that an electron source in which a large number of devices are arranged over a large area can be formed. Therefore, various applications that make use of this feature are being studied. For example, a charged beam source, a display device, and the like can be given.

As an example of an electron source having a large number of surface conduction electron-emitting devices arranged in an array, there is an electron source schematically shown in FIG. 6 by the present applicant. The electron source includes an electron source in which a plurality of surface conduction electron-emitting devices are arranged in parallel, and row wirings (also referred to as common wirings) connecting both ends of the devices are arranged in a large number of rows (for example, Kaisho 64-03
No. 1332, JP-A-1-283747, JP-A-2-2-2
No. 57552).

FIG. 6 is a schematic diagram showing an example of an electron source having a ladder arrangement to which the present invention can be applied.

In FIG. 1, reference numeral 60 denotes a substrate, 61 denotes a surface conduction electron-emitting device, and 62 denotes a common wiring. Although FIG. 1 shows an electron source in which 5 × 10 surface conduction electron-emitting devices are arranged for convenience, the size of the arrangement is not limited to this.

In recent years, in image display devices such as computer displays, flat-panel display devices using liquid crystal devices have become widespread in place of CRTs. There is a problem that a backlight to be provided must be provided. Therefore, development of a self-luminous display device is desired.

As a self-luminous display device, for example, U
As proposed in SP506683, there is an image display device in which an electron source in which a large number of surface conduction electron-emitting devices are arranged and a phosphor that emits visible light by electrons emitted from the electron source are combined. .

In manufacturing the above-described electron source and image display device, the present applicant has added a new step called activation processing (details will be described later) to the above-mentioned surface conduction electron-emitting device. In this activation step, by controlling and coating a film mainly composed of graphite, amorphous carbon, or a mixture thereof in the vicinity of the electron-emitting portion of the device, each surface conduction in vacuum is controlled. It has been proposed that the emission current from the electron-emitting device can be increased.

This activation process is a process to be performed on the surface conduction electron-emitting device after the completion of the forming process.
In an environment having a degree of vacuum of about -4 to 10-5 [Torr], the application of a predetermined pulse voltage is repeated to significantly increase the emission current from the element. Here, an example of a pulse voltage waveform at the time of the activation process is shown in FIG. 7, and an example of a temporal change of the device current If and the emission current Ie flowing through each surface conduction electron-emitting device at the time of the activation process. As shown in FIG.

By performing such an activation step, an increase in the emission current Ie of the surface conduction electron-emitting device is measured, and the performance of the electron source and the image display device using the same can be improved.

[0020]

The above-described activation step has been useful for increasing the emission current Ie. However, in an electron source composed of a plurality of surface conduction electron-emitting devices, the number of elements used for the electron source increases as the size of the electron source increases, so that the time required for the activation process also increases. , Manufacturing cost becomes a problem.

That is, as shown in FIG. 6, the above activation process is applied to an electron source (5 rows × 10 elements in FIG. 6) in which N surface conduction electron-emitting devices are arranged in M rows in one row. If it is performed, it takes a considerably long time to complete the activation processing of all the elements. In the activation process in the case of manufacturing such an electron source, the elements of the lines from 1 to M rows are sequentially activated, but it is assumed that an activation time of 30 minutes per line is required. In this case, (30 × M
Line). Therefore, in an image display device such as a flat panel display using a surface conduction electron-emitting device, the number of lines M of the device used in the device reaches hundreds to thousands, and thus the activation process described above is performed. If this is done, an enormous required time is required, and the production cost becomes a problem.

If the time required for the activation process is long, the amount of the organic substance in the vacuum may change, so that it becomes difficult to perform the activation process on the elements of all the lines under predetermined conditions. As a result, uniform electron emission characteristics (electron emission characteristics) cannot be obtained from all devices.

In order to reduce the time required for the activation processing, for example, when performing the activation processing, a plurality of rows (here, L rows) are selected from the total number M of lines, and the selected L rows are selected. There is also a method in which a voltage is simultaneously applied to the power supply. In this case, assuming that the element current flowing per element at the end of the activation process is 5 mA, at the same time, 0.005 × L × N
It is necessary to supply the current [A] from the activation processing device to the electron source.

As described above, when the electron source is applied to an image display device such as a flat panel display,
The number of M (rows) and N (columns) will reach hundreds to thousands, and for example, the number of rows L to which a voltage is applied at the same time is 10
When the number of elements per row N is 1000 elements,
The activation processing device needs to supply a very large activation current of 50 A.

Generally, in the case of an activation processing apparatus using ordinary electronic circuit components, the amount of supplied current is about several A to 10 A, and it is necessary to prepare a processing apparatus having a large current capacity as described above. Is difficult, and even if it is created, the cost of the activation processing device itself becomes high, and as a result, the cost of the image display device is affected.

Accordingly, the present invention provides an activation apparatus for an electron source, which activates an electron source having a plurality of electron-emitting devices in a short time, and in which the activated electron-emitting devices have uniform electron emission characteristics. The purpose is to provide an activation method.

[0027]

To achieve the above object, an electron source activation device according to the present invention has the following configuration.

That is, by repeatedly applying a predetermined pulse voltage to an electron source provided with a plurality of electron-emitting devices in an atmosphere in which a predetermined chemical substance is present, electrons which activate the plurality of electron-emitting devices are obtained. A source activating device, wherein the plurality of electron-emitting devices are divided into a plurality of groups, and the groups are grouped into a single block, and when activating the electron-emitting devices included in the block, the plurality of groups are included in the block. Voltage applying means for applying a predetermined pulse voltage to the electron-emitting devices in at least one of the groups.
Current detecting means for detecting a current flowing through the electron-emitting devices of each group included in the block; and, in accordance with an increase in the total value of the currents detected by the current detecting means, the predetermined pulse voltage is simultaneously controlled in the block. Control means for controlling the voltage application means so as to reduce the number of groups to be applied.

In the case where all the electron-emitting devices provided in the electron source are handled by defining a plurality of the blocks, the control means may include the plurality of blocks in at least one group in each of the plurality of blocks. The voltage application means is controlled so that one pulse of a predetermined pulse voltage is applied in a time-division manner.

Further, for example, the control means may increase the duty ratio of the pulse voltage as the number of groups to which the predetermined pulse voltage is simultaneously applied decreases.

Further, in order to achieve the above object, a method for activating an electron source according to the present invention has the following configuration.

That is, by repeatedly applying a predetermined pulse voltage to an electron source provided with a plurality of electron-emitting devices in an atmosphere in which a predetermined chemical substance is present, electrons which activate the plurality of electron-emitting devices are obtained. A method of activating a source, wherein the plurality of electron-emitting devices are divided into a plurality of groups, the plurality of groups are grouped into one block, and when activating the electron-emitting devices included in the block, A predetermined pulse voltage is applied to the electron-emitting devices in at least one group included, a current flowing in the at least one group by applying the predetermined pulse voltage is detected, and in accordance with an increase in the detected current, The number of groups to which the predetermined pulse voltage is simultaneously applied in the block may be reduced.

For example, when all the electron-emitting devices provided in the electron source are handled by defining a plurality of the blocks, the predetermined pulse is assigned to at least one group in each of the plurality of blocks. It is characterized in that one pulse of voltage is applied in a time-division manner.

Further, for example, as the number of groups to which the predetermined pulse voltage is simultaneously applied is reduced, the duty ratio of the pulse voltage may be increased.

[0035]

Embodiments of the present invention will be described below with reference to the drawings. The present invention particularly relates to a step of performing the above-described activation process among manufacturing steps of a plurality of surface conduction electron-emitting devices provided in an electron source. Here, according to an outline of the present invention, when performing the activation process, within the range of the maximum current capacity (Imax) that the activation voltage source can output,
It is assumed that by activating a plurality of lines of the electron source substrate at the same time as much as possible, the electron emission characteristics of a plurality of devices after activation are made uniform and the time required for the processing is reduced. .

In the following embodiments, the structure and overall manufacturing method of a surface conduction electron-emitting device, an electron source using a plurality of such devices, an activation step of the electron source which is a feature of the present invention, and The configuration of the image display device having the electron source will be described in this order.

[Surface-conduction electron-emitting device] The surface-conduction electron-emitting device used in the electron source according to the present embodiment includes:
There are a flat type and a vertical type. First, a basic configuration of a planar surface conduction electron-emitting device will be described below with reference to the drawings.

<Structure of Planar Surface-Conduction Electron Emission Device> FIG. 11 is a plan view showing a schematic configuration of a plane surface conduction electron-emitting device applicable to the present invention. FIG.
FIG. 2 is a cross-sectional view showing a schematic configuration of a flat surface conduction electron-emitting device applicable to the present invention.

11 and 12, reference numeral 1 denotes a substrate;
2, 3 are device electrodes, 4 is a conductive thin film including an electron emitting portion,
Reference numeral 5 denotes an electron emitting portion.

The substrate 1 may be quartz glass, glass with a reduced impurity content such as Na, blue plate glass, a glass substrate in which blue plate glass is laminated with SiO 2 formed by a sputtering method or the like, or ceramic such as alumina or Si and the like.
A substrate or the like can be used.

The material of the opposing device electrodes 2 and 3 is as follows.
General conductor materials can be used. This is because, for example, Ni, Cr, Au, Mo, W, Pt, Ti, Al, C
metals or alloys such as u, Pd, and Pd, Ag, Aq, R
It can be appropriately selected from a printed conductor made of a metal such as uO2 or Pd-Ag or a metal oxide and glass, a transparent conductor such as In2O3-SnO2, a semiconductor conductor material such as polysilicon, or the like.

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 in the range of several thousand angstroms to several hundred micrometers, and is more preferably set in the range of several micrometers to several tens of micrometers in consideration of the voltage applied between the element electrodes. Good to do.

The element electrode length W is preferably set in a range from several micrometers to several hundred micrometers in consideration of the resistance value of the electrode and the electron emission characteristics. The film thickness d of the device electrodes 2 and 3 is preferably set in a range from several hundred angstroms to several micrometers.

In addition to the configuration shown in FIGS. 11 and 12, a configuration in which a conductive thin film 4 and opposing element electrodes 2 and 3 are laminated on the substrate 1 in this order can be adopted.

It is preferable to use a fine particle film composed of fine particles for the conductive thin film 4 in order to obtain good electron emission characteristics. The film thickness is determined by the step coverage of the device electrodes 2 and 3 and the device electrode 2. , 3 and forming conditions to be described later.

The thickness of the conductive thin film 4 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 is preferably in the range of Angstroms, and the resistance value of Rs is preferably 10 3 to 10 7 Ω / □. Note that Rs is a value that appears when the resistance R measured in the length direction of the thin film having the thickness t, the width w, and the length 1 is R = Rs (1 / w).

In the present embodiment, the forming process will be described by taking an energizing process as an example, but the forming process is not limited to this, and a crack is generated in the conductive thin film to form a high resistance state. It includes processing.

The material constituting the conductive thin film 4 is Pd, P
t, Ru, Ag, Au, Ti, In, Cu, Cr, F
metals such as e, Zn, Sn, Ta, W, Pb, PdO, S
oxides such as nO2, In2O3, PbO, Sb2O3, H
fB2, ZrB2, LaB6, CeB6, YB4, Gd
Shelf such as B4, TiC, ZrC, HfC, TaC, S
It is appropriately selected from carbides such as iC and WC, nitrides such as TiN, ZrN and HfN, semiconductors such as Si and Ge, and carbon.

The fine particle film described here is a film in which a plurality of fine particles are gathered, and has a fine structure in a state in which the fine particles are individually dispersed or arranged, or in a state in which the fine particles are adjacent to each other or overlapped (some). Fine particles aggregate to form an island-like structure as a whole). The particle size of the fine particles is in the range of several angstroms to several thousand angstroms, preferably in the range of 10 angstroms to 200 angstroms.

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 such as energization forming described later of the conductive thin film 4. I do. In some cases, conductive fine particles having a particle size in the range of several Angstroms to several hundred Angstroms exist inside the electron-emitting portion 5. The conductive fine particles contain some or all of the elements of the material constituting the conductive thin film 4. The electron emitting portion 5 and the conductive thin film 4 in the vicinity thereof can also contain carbon and a carbon compound.

<Structure of vertical surface conduction electron-emitting device> Next, a vertical surface conduction electron-emitting device will be described.

FIG. 13 is a sectional view showing a schematic configuration of a vertical surface conduction electron-emitting device applicable to the present invention.

In the figure, 1 is a substrate, 2 and 3 are device electrodes, 4 is a conductive thin film including an electron emitting portion, 5 is an electron emitting portion, and 6 is a step forming portion.

The substrate 1, the device electrodes 2 and 3, the conductive thin film 4, and the electron-emitting portion 5 can be made of the same material as that of the above-mentioned flat surface-conduction type electron-emitting device. Is omitted.

The step forming portion 6 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 6 corresponds to the device electrode interval L of the above-mentioned planar surface conduction electron-emitting device, and can be in the range of several thousand angstroms to several tens of micrometers. 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 set 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 forming the device electrodes 2 and 3 and the step forming portion 6 on the surface of the substrate 1. Although the electron emitting portion 5 is formed in the step forming portion 6 in FIG.
The shape and position are not limited to this, except for being located at the center of the conductive thin film 4 depending on the forming conditions and the like.

<Method of Manufacturing Surface Conduction Electron-Emitting Device> Next, a method of manufacturing the above-described surface conduction electron-emitting device will be described. There are various methods for manufacturing a planar type and a vertical type surface conduction electron-emitting device. Here, the planar type will be described as an example.

FIGS. 14 to 16 are views for explaining a process of manufacturing a surface conduction electron-emitting device applicable to the present invention. In these figures, the same parts as those of the element shown in FIG. 11 are denoted by the same reference numerals.

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. The device electrodes 2 and 3 are formed (FIG. 1
4).

2) Substrate 1 provided with device electrodes 2 and 3
Then, an organic metal solution is applied, and an organic metal thin film is formed on the substrate 1 on which the organic metal solution is applied. At this time,
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.

Further, the organic metal thin film formed on the substrate 1 is heated and baked, and the heated and baked thin film is patterned by lift-off, etching or the like to form the conductive thin film 4 (FIG. 15). Here, the method of applying the organometallic solution has been described, but the method of forming the conductive thin film is not limited to this. The vacuum deposition method, the sputtering method, the chemical vapor deposition method, the dispersion coating method, the dipping method, and the like. Law,
A spinner method or the like can also be used.

3) Subsequently, a forming step is performed. As an example of a method of the forming step, a method by an energization process will be described. When current is applied between the device electrodes 2 and 3 using a power supply (not shown), an electron-emitting portion 5 having a high-resistance crack is formed at the center of the conductive thin film 4. The electron emitting portion 5 is formed in a thin film portion having a film thickness and resistance suitable for electron emission (FIG. 16). According to the energization forming process, a portion of the conductive thin film 4 having a locally changed structure such as destruction, deformation or alteration is formed. A part of the portion constitutes the electron emission section 5.

FIGS. 17 and 18 are schematic diagrams showing an example of a voltage waveform in the energization forming process of the surface conduction electron-emitting device applicable to the present invention.

As shown in FIGS. 17 and 18, the voltage waveform is preferably a pulse waveform. This includes a method shown in FIG. 17 in which a pulse having a pulse peak value of a predetermined voltage is continuously applied, and a method shown in FIG. 18 in which a voltage pulse is applied while sequentially increasing the pulse peak value. .

T1 and T2 in FIG. 17 are the pulse width and pulse interval of the voltage waveform. Usually, T1 is set in the range of 1 microsecond to 10 milliseconds, and T2 is set in the range of 10 microseconds to 100 milliseconds. The peak value of the triangular wave (peak voltage at the time of energization forming) is appropriately selected according to the surface conduction electron-emitting device. Under such conditions, for example, a voltage is applied for several seconds to several tens minutes. The pulse waveform is not limited to a triangular wave, and a desired waveform such as a rectangular wave can be adopted.

T1 and T2 in FIG. 18 can be the same as those shown in FIG. The peak value of the triangular wave (peak voltage during energization forming) can be increased, for example, by about 0.1 V steps.

The end of the energization forming process can be detected by measuring a current flowing through the element by applying a voltage that does not locally destroy or deform the conductive thin film 4 during the pulse interval T2. . For example, 0.1
An element current flowing when a voltage of about V is applied is measured, and a resistance value is determined from the measured element current and the applied voltage. Then, when the obtained resistance value indicates a resistance of 1 MΩ or more, the energization forming may be terminated.

4) Next, the element which has been subjected to the energization forming processing is subjected to a processing called an activation step. In this activation step, a voltage is appropriately applied to the electron-emitting portion formed by the energization forming process, and carbon or a carbon compound is deposited in the vicinity of the electron-emitting portion. According to this activation step, the characteristics of the device current If and the emission current Ie can be significantly changed.

Here, the activation process in a single surface conduction electron-emitting device will be described, and the case where the activation process is performed on an electron source having a plurality of surface conduction electron-emitting devices will be described later.

FIG. 9 is a view for explaining an activation step in a surface conduction electron-emitting device applicable to the present invention.

In FIG. 9, reference numeral 15 denotes an ammeter for measuring a device current If flowing through the surface conduction electron-emitting device. Reference numeral 16 denotes an anode electrode for capturing an emission current Ie emitted from the surface conduction electron-emitting device. A DC high-voltage power supply 17 and an ammeter 18 are connected to the anode electrode 16 (when the substrate 1 is incorporated into a display panel and then the activation process is performed, the fluorescent plate of the display panel is connected to the anode. Used as electrode 16).

This activation step can be performed, for example, by repeatedly applying an appropriate voltage pulse from the activation voltage source 11 to the device electrodes in an atmosphere containing an organic substance gas. Specifically, while the voltage is applied from the activation voltage source 11, the element current I
The activation progress is monitored by measuring f and emission current Ie, and the operation of the activation voltage source 11 is controlled. Ammeter 1
FIG. 8 shows an example of the device current If and the emission current Ie measured at 5 and 18. When the activation power supply 11 starts to apply a pulse voltage, the device current If and the emission current Ie increase with time. However, both eventually saturate and hardly increase. As described above, when the device current If and the emission current Ie are almost saturated, the application of the voltage from the activation voltage source 11 is stopped, and the activation process ends. In the case of the surface conduction electron-emitting device that has been activated as described above, the device current If generally ranges from about 100 microamps to several tens milliamps. It can be seen that this activation step increases the device current If with activation and significantly increases the emission current Ie.

FIG. 10 is a diagram showing an example of the output waveform of the activation voltage source in the activation step as one embodiment of the present invention.

In the figure, T3 and T4 are the pulse width and pulse interval of the voltage waveform. Usually, T3 is set in the range of 1 microsecond to 10 milliseconds, and T4 is set in the range of 10 microseconds to 100 milliseconds. In the example of FIG. 10, the activation process is performed by periodically applying a predetermined voltage, which is a rectangular wave, to the conductive thin film 4. Conditions can be appropriately changed according to the emitting element.

If the ratio (duty ratio) of the pulse width to the period of the voltage pulse is too small, the element current I
f, there is not much increase in the discharge current Ie, and it tends to be difficult to activate, and the electron emission characteristics after activation, particularly the emission current Ie, often become small. The duty ratio at the time of activation depends on the activating material and the like, but is preferably about 1/100 to 1/2, and especially the duty ratio in the latter half of the activation step is desirably large.

The atmosphere containing the organic substance gas is formed by utilizing an organic gas remaining in the atmosphere when the inside of the vacuum vessel is evacuated using, for example, an oil diffusion pump or a rotary pump. Alternatively, it can be obtained by introducing a gas of an appropriate organic substance into a vacuum once sufficiently evacuated by an ion pump or the like.

At this time, the preferable gas pressure of the organic substance is:
Since it varies depending on the above-described application form, the shape of the vacuum vessel, the type of the organic substance, and the like, it is appropriately set according to the case. Examples of suitable organic substances include aliphatic hydrocarbons of alkanes, alkenes, and alkynes, aromatic hydrocarbons, alcohols, aldehydes, ketones, amines, and organic acids such as phenol, carpon, and sulfonic acid. And specifically, CnH2n + 2 such as methane, ethane, and propane.
Cn such as a saturated hydrocarbon represented by the formula, ethylene, propylene, etc.
Unsaturated hydrocarbons represented by a composition formula such as H2n, 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.

According to this activation step, carbon or a carbon compound can be deposited on the device from the organic substance existing in the atmosphere, and the characteristics of the device current If and the emission current Ie can be significantly changed. Can be.

Here, the carbon and the carbon compound are, for example, graphite (including so-called HOPG, PG, and GC, and HOPG is a substantially complete crystal structure of graphite, PG
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. The thickness is preferably in the range of 500 Å or less, more preferably in the range of 300 Å or less.

5) The surface conduction electron-emitting device obtained through the above steps is preferably subjected to a stabilization step.
This stabilization step is a step of exhausting the organic substance in the vacuum vessel. 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 above-mentioned 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 from the oil diffusion pump is used, it is necessary to keep the partial pressure of this component as low as possible. There is. The partial pressure of the organic component in the vacuum vessel is a partial pressure at which the carbon and the carbon compound hardly newly accumulate, and is 1 × 10 minus 8
The power is preferably not more than the power [Torr], and more preferably not more than 1 × 10 minus the power of 10 [Torr]. Further, when the inside of the vacuum vessel is evacuated, it is preferable that the entire vacuum vessel is heated so that the organic substance molecules adsorbed on the inner wall of the vacuum vessel or the surface conduction electron-emitting device are easily evacuated.
The heating condition at this time is preferably 80 to 200 ° C. for 5 hours or more, but is not particularly limited to this condition, and is appropriately selected depending on various conditions such as the size and shape of the vacuum vessel and the configuration of the surface conduction electron-emitting device. It is performed under the conditions to be performed. The pressure in the vacuum vessel needs to be as low as possible, and is preferably 1-3 × 10 −7 [Torr] or less, and more preferably 1 × 10 7
Is particularly preferable to be equal to or less than the minus 8th power [Torr].

The atmosphere at the time of driving after performing the stabilizing step is preferably the same as that at the end of the stabilizing step. However, the present invention is not limited to this, and it is preferable that the organic substance is sufficiently removed. Even if the degree of vacuum itself is slightly reduced, sufficiently stable characteristics can be maintained.

By employing such a vacuum atmosphere, the deposition of new carbon or a carbon compound can be suppressed.
As a result, the element current If and the emission current Ie can be stabilized.

FIG. 1 shows the basic characteristics of the surface conduction electron-emitting device applicable to the present invention obtained through the above-described steps.
This will be described with reference to FIGS.

FIG. 19 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. 19, the same parts as those shown in FIGS. 9 and 11 are denoted by the same reference numerals as those shown in FIG.

In FIG. 19, reference numeral 20 denotes a vacuum vessel,
21 is an exhaust pump. A surface conduction electron-emitting device is arranged in the vacuum vessel 20. That is, 1 is a substrate constituting a surface conduction electron-emitting device, 2 and 3 are device electrodes, 4 is a conductive thin film, and 5 is an electron-emitting portion. 19
Is a power supply for applying a device voltage Vf to the surface conduction electron-emitting device. Reference numeral 15 denotes an ammeter for measuring an element current If flowing through the conductive thin film 4 between the element electrodes 2 and 3. Reference numeral 16 denotes an anode electrode for capturing an emission current Ie emitted from the electron emission portion 5 of the device. 17
Is a high-voltage power supply for applying a voltage to the anode electrode 16. Reference numeral 18 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 16 and the surface conduction electron-emitting device in the range of 2 mm to 8 mm.

The vacuum vessel 20 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 21 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 provided with the electron source substrate shown here can be heated up to 200 degrees 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. 20 is a diagram schematically showing the relationship between the emission current Ie and the device voltage Vf with respect to the device current If measured using the vacuum processing apparatus shown in FIG. FIG.
At 0, the emission current Ie is significantly smaller than the device current If, so that it is shown in arbitrary units. The vertical and horizontal axes are linear scales.

As is apparent from FIG. 20, 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) this element has a certain voltage (referred to as a threshold voltage,
When an element voltage equal to or higher than Vth) is applied, the emission current Ie sharply increases. On the other hand, when the element voltage is equal to or lower than the threshold voltage Vth, the emission current Ie is hardly detected. That is, the emission current I
This is a non-linear element having a clear threshold voltage Vth for e.

(Ii) Since the emission current Ie monotonously increases according to the device voltage Vf, the emission current Ie can be controlled by the device voltage Vf.

(Iii) The emission charge captured by the anode electrode 16 depends on the time during which the device voltage Vf is applied. That is, the amount of charge captured by the anode electrode 16 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. Utilizing this property enables application to various fields such as an electron source and an image display device configured by arranging a plurality of surface conduction electron-emitting devices.

In FIG. 20, an example in which the element current If monotonically increases with respect to the element voltage Vf (hereinafter referred to as "MI characteristic") is shown by a solid line. 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”) (not shown). These characteristics can be realized by controlling the above-described steps.

<Electron Source and Image Display Having Surface Conduction Electron-Emitting Element> Next, an electron source and an image display in which a plurality of the above-described surface conduction electron-emitting elements are arranged on a substrate will be described.

Various arrangements of the surface conduction electron-emitting device can be adopted. As an example, as shown in FIG. 6, each of a large number of surface conduction electron-emitting devices arranged in parallel is connected at both ends, and a large number of rows of surface conduction electron-emitting devices are arranged (referred to as a row direction). A ladder for controlling and driving electrons from the surface conduction electron-emitting device by a control electrode (also referred to as a grid) disposed above the surface conduction electron-emitting device in a direction (called a column direction) orthogonal to the wiring. There is a thing of a shape arrangement. Separately, a plurality of surface conduction electron-emitting devices are arranged in a matrix in the X and Y directions, and one of the electrodes of the plurality of surface conduction electron-emitting devices arranged in the same row is connected to a wiring in the X direction. And the other of the electrodes of the plurality of surface conduction electron-emitting devices arranged in the same column is commonly connected to the 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 applicable to the present invention has the characteristics (i) to (iii) as described above. That is, the emission electrons from the surface conduction electron-emitting device can be controlled by adjusting the peak value and the pulse width of the pulse-like voltage applied between the opposing device electrodes when the threshold voltage or more is exceeded. On the other hand, when the voltage is lower than the threshold voltage, almost no electrons are emitted from the element. According to this characteristic, even when a large number of surface conduction electron-emitting devices are arranged, the surface conduction electron-emitting device can be selected in accordance with an input signal by appropriately applying a pulsed voltage to each device. To control the amount of electron emission.

Hereinafter, based on this principle, an electron source substrate obtained by arranging a plurality of surface conduction electron-emitting devices applicable to the present invention will be described with reference to FIG.

FIG. 21 is a schematic diagram showing an example of an electron source arranged in a simple matrix applicable to the present invention.

In the figure, 31 is an electron source substrate, 32 is an X-direction wiring, and 33 is a Y-direction wiring. 34 is a surface conduction electron-emitting device, and 35 is a connection. The surface conduction electron-emitting device 34 may be of the above-mentioned flat type or vertical type.

The m X-directional wirings 32 are DX1, DX1
, DXm, and can be made of a conductive metal or the like formed by a vacuum deposition method, a printing method, a sputtering method, or the like. The material, thickness, and width of the wiring are appropriately designed. The Y-direction wiring 33 includes n wirings DY1, DY2,..., DYn, and is formed similarly to the X-direction wiring 32. These m X-directional wirings 32 and n Y-directional wirings 3
3, an interlayer insulating layer (not shown) is provided.
Both are electrically separated (m and n are both positive integers).

The 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 31 on which the X-directional wiring 32 is formed. The material and manufacturing method are set as appropriate. The X-direction wiring 32 and the Y-direction wiring 33 are respectively drawn out as external terminals.

A pair of electrodes (not shown) constituting the surface conduction electron-emitting device 34 are electrically connected by m X-directional wirings 32, n Y-directional wirings 33, and a connection 35 made of a conductive metal or the like. It is connected.

The material forming the wirings 32 and 33, the material forming the connection 35, and the material forming the pair of element electrodes differ from each other even if some or all of the constituent elements are the same. Is also 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.

A forming step is performed by applying the above-described forming voltage pulse to the electron source substrate on which the plurality of surface conduction electron-emitting devices are arranged in a matrix through the X-direction wiring and the Y-direction wiring. An electron emission portion is formed on the substrate.

<Activation Process of Electron Source> Next, a method of activating an electron source in which a plurality of surface conduction electron-emitting devices are arranged, which is a feature of the present embodiment, will be described in detail.

As in the above-described step 4) of manufacturing the surface conduction electron-emitting device, in the activation step, the substrate is placed on an electron source substrate in which a plurality of the devices are arranged in an atmosphere containing an organic substance gas. Is repeated from the activation voltage source via the X-direction wiring and the Y-direction wiring. However, if the normal activation process described above is performed on a multi-electron source in which a plurality of elements are arranged, the time required for the activation process on the entire electron source becomes extremely long. In this case, the emission current characteristics of the device are not uniform. For this reason, special consideration is required for satisfactorily activating the electron source on which a plurality of surface conduction electron-emitting devices are arranged. Hereinafter, the activation processing method will be described in detail with reference to the drawings.

FIG. 1 is a block diagram showing the configuration of an electron source activation device according to one embodiment of the present invention.

In the figure, reference numeral 11 denotes an activation voltage source for generating a voltage pulse necessary for activation. Reference numeral 12 denotes a line selection unit that applies a voltage pulse generated by the activation voltage source 11 to a desired line on the electron source substrate 10. 13
Is an ammeter for monitoring a total current value of element currents flowing through a plurality of surface conduction electron-emitting elements arranged for each line of the electron source substrate 10. Reference numeral 14 denotes an activation voltage source 11 based on an element current value of one line detected by the ammeter 13.
And a control unit for controlling the line selection unit 12. The control unit 14 includes a microcomputer (not shown), and the microcomputer realizes a control process described later. Reference numeral 10 denotes an electron source substrate on which a plurality of surface conduction electron-emitting devices are subjected to the above-described forming process and arranged in a simple matrix of M rows × N columns. Here, the electron source substrate 10 is placed in a vacuum device (not shown), is placed in an atmosphere containing the organic substance gas described in the above 4), and is placed in the X direction of the electron source substrate. The wirings Dx1 to DxM are connected to Sx1 to SxM of the activation processing device.

In the present embodiment, a plurality of surface conduction electron-emitting devices arranged in one line are defined as one group. In this embodiment, one line is defined as one group. However, one line in the column direction or a large number of lines may be defined as one group according to the capacity of a power supply to be used.

In this embodiment, the activation voltage source 11
Outputs the voltage waveform shown in FIG. The waveform of the voltage pulse and ON / OFF of the output are controlled by the control unit 14. The pulse voltage output from the activation voltage source is applied to the electron source substrate 1 selected by the line selection unit 12.
0 is applied to the line.

FIG. 2 is a diagram showing a selection mechanism of a line selection unit in an electron source activation device according to one embodiment of the present invention.

The line selecting section 12 shown in FIG. 1 is composed of a switch such as a relay or an analog switch, and a plurality of surface conduction electron-emitting devices on the electron source substrate 10 are formed of M × N.
In a matrix arrangement of M, M switches are arranged in parallel like sw1 to swM, and connected to the X wiring terminals Dx1 to DxM of the electron source substrate 10 via Sx1 to SxM. The switches sw1 to swM are connected to the control unit 1
4, the activation voltage source 1 is applied to the line to be activated.
It operates so that the pulse voltage from 1 is applied. In the example of FIG. 2, when sw1 operates, the pulse voltage of the activation voltage source 11 is supplied to Sx1, and the voltage is Dx1
Applied to the first line of the electron source substrate 10 through the terminal,
The other lines are connected to the ground. Further, the pulse voltage applied to the first line of the electron source substrate 10 during the period in which sw1 is on is one pulse of the pulse voltages output from the activation voltage source 11. Such an operation is also performed by the switches sw1 to swM. When the control unit 14 selects a plurality of switches among sw1 to swM, a pulse voltage is simultaneously supplied to a plurality of lines of the electron source substrate 10 corresponding to the selected switches.

Next, an activation processing method for a multi-electron source according to the present invention will be described with reference to FIGS. In the present embodiment, the pulse voltage output from the activation voltage source 11 is T3 (pulse width) = 1 msec, T4 (pulse cycle) = 10 msec, and the voltage peak value is 14V.

FIG. 3 is a flowchart showing the activation processing of the control unit in the activation processing apparatus according to one embodiment of the present invention. The processing performed by the microcomputer in the control unit 14 that operates according to a program stored in advance. Is shown.

In FIG. 3, in step S 1, a plurality of lines that have not yet been activated or have not been activated are selected from a plurality of lines of the electron source substrate 10.
Activation is started by simultaneously applying an activation voltage pulse to the selected plurality of lines. Here, in order to select a line, the microcomputer refers to a RAM in the microcomputer in which data capable of identifying whether activation has been completed is stored.
The data in the RAM is written in step S5 described later.

Step S2: The element current If of each activated line is measured by an ammeter, and the total value of the measured currents is the maximum current capacity value Imax of the activation voltage source 11.
Determine if:

Step S3: If the determination in step S2 is No (greater than the maximum current capacity value Imax),
Either reduce the number of lines to be activated at the same time, or change the lines to be activated at the same time, and return to step S1.

Step S4: If the determination in step S2 is Yes (less than or equal to the maximum current capacity value Imax), the element current If value of each activated line is saturated, that is, the activation is completed. To find out. If the determination is No (there is no activated line), the process returns to step S1 in order to continue activation of the currently selected plurality of lines.

Step S5: If the determination in step S4 is Yes (the activation end line exists),
Data identifying the activated line is stored in a RAM or the like in the microcomputer, and it is determined whether the activation has been completed for all the lines of the electron source substrate 10. If the determination is Yes (end of all lines), the activation step ends.

Step S6: If the determination in step S5 is No (there is a line that has not been activated), a line that has not been activated is selected again (the line selection in this step is also performed). RAM above
It goes without saying that the data in (1) is referred to), and the process returns to step S1.

FIG. 4 is a timing chart showing the operation timing of the activation processing apparatus as one embodiment of the present invention, and is a diagram for explaining the operation at the time of the activation processing of FIG. In the figure, the top waveform is
3 shows a voltage waveform of a continuous rectangular pulse output from the activation voltage source 11. Each waveform of sw1 to swM indicates the operation timing of the switch built in the line selection unit 12. Each of the waveforms Sx1 to SxM indicates the waveform of the pulse voltage output from the line selection unit 12. At this time, each line being activated has a pulse width of 1 m.
A rectangular wave of sec is applied at a period of 10 msec.

A period A shown in FIG. 4 indicates an initial point in time after the activation process by the control unit 14 is started.
Shows a state in which a plurality of lines that have not been activated are selected, and the selected lines are activated simultaneously.

Next, a period B in which time has elapsed since the period A
Is that, as a result of simultaneously activating a plurality of lines selected in the period A, the total value of the device currents If flowing through the devices included in those lines is larger than the maximum current capacity value Imax of the activation voltage source 11. Control unit 1 indicates that it has grown
4 indicates that the activation of the M-th row has been temporarily suspended.

During the period C, the activation process is performed on a plurality of lines selected within the range of the maximum current capacity value Imax after the process is restarted. As a result, the number of lines activated simultaneously decreases (2). It is assumed that the activation of the first row has already been completed.) This shows a situation in which only the first row is activated.

Then, in the D region, the activation of the first row is completed, and another plurality of lines, the selections of which have been interrupted in the period B, are selected again (the M-th row in FIG. 4). This shows a situation in which activation of the plurality of lines has been resumed.

As described above, in the present embodiment, the plurality of surface conduction electron-emitting devices included in one row of the electron source substrate 10 are grouped into one group, and the maximum current capacity I
Since the surface conduction electron-emitting devices included in a plurality of lines are simultaneously activated within the range of max, the time required for the activation process can be reduced, and the time required for activating the electron source substrate 10 can be reduced. Becomes possible. Thereby, the discharge current characteristics of the plurality of elements on the electron source substrate 10 after activation are made uniform. When the current exceeds the range of the maximum current capacity Imax, the number of lines to be selected can be reduced, so that the activation voltage source 11 can be prevented from being overloaded.

In the above-described activation processing method, all the lines of the electron source substrate 10 are collectively subjected to the activation processing. However, for example, all the lines are divided into two blocks, and one line is divided into two blocks. After applying the pulse voltage to the plurality of lines, a time-division operation of selecting a plurality of lines in the other block may be repeated. In this case, the waveform of the pulse voltage output from the activation voltage source 11 is
T3 (pulse width) = 1 msec, T4 (pulse cycle) =
By setting the time to 5 msec, a rectangular wave having a pulse width of 1 msec is applied to a plurality of lines selected in each block.
It is applied at a cycle of 0 msec. As a result, the activation time can be reduced to half that of the previous case.

The method of dividing all the lines of the electron source substrate 10 is not limited to this. In principle, the pulse width with respect to the period of the voltage pulse applied to each surface conduction electron-emitting device at the time of activation is determined. A plurality of blocks can be set up to the reciprocal value of the ratio (duty ratio). As a result, the time required for activation can be further reduced.

Further, using the above-described time-sharing activation method, in the initial stage after the start of activation, the duty ratio of a voltage pulse applied to each element at the time of activation is reduced, and activation is performed. Even if the duty ratio is increased in accordance with the progress, the time required for activation can be reduced. This is because, when performing activation in a time-sharing manner, if the duty ratio is reduced in the initial stage of activation, the number of blocks that can be activated at one time can be increased by an amount corresponding to the small duty ratio. This is because many surface conduction electron-emitting devices can be activated in the initial stage. At this time, for example, in the first half of activation, the duty ratio is set to 1/20, and 2
It is preferable that activation is performed at a time in the 0-line time division, and the activation is executed every 10 lines in the latter half of the activation with a duty ratio of 1/10. In this case, the activation time can be reduced to 3/4 as compared with the case where activation is performed every 10 lines at a duty ratio of 1/10 from the beginning.

In the above, the method of activating the electron source in which a plurality of surface conduction electron-emitting devices are arranged has been described. According to the present embodiment, it is possible to greatly reduce the time required for the manufacturing process, thereby making it possible to provide an image display device having high uniformity of discharge current characteristics and low manufacturing cost.

In the above embodiment, the number of lines and the duty ratio have been appropriately described as an example. However, the present invention is not limited to this, and a desired value may be appropriately determined depending on the total number of lines of the electron source substrate and the activation conditions. Can be selected.

<Image Display Apparatus> Next, an image display apparatus having the above-mentioned electron source as a display panel will be described.

FIG. 22 is a schematic diagram showing an example of a display panel of an image display device using an electron source to which the present invention is applied.

In the figure, reference numeral 31 denotes an electron source substrate on which a plurality of surface conduction electron-emitting devices are arranged; 41, a rear plate on which the electron source substrate 31 is fixed; 46, a fluorescent film 44 and a metal back 45 on the inner surface of a glass substrate 43; And the like are formed on the face plate. Reference numeral 42 denotes a support frame, and a rear plate 41 and a face plate 46 are connected to the support frame 42 using frit glass or the like. 47 is an envelope, for example, in the atmosphere or in nitrogen, 400 to 500
By baking for 10 minutes or more in the temperature range of degree, the structure is sealed.

Reference numeral 34 denotes an electron emitting portion corresponding to the electron emitting portion 5 in FIG. 32 and 33 are X-direction wiring and Y-direction wiring connected to a pair of device electrodes of the surface conduction electron-emitting device. The X-direction wiring 32 is connected to a scanning signal applying unit (not shown) for applying a scanning signal for selecting a row of the surface conduction electron-emitting devices 34 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 34 arranged in the Y direction according to an input signal is connected to the Y-direction wiring 33. The driving voltage applied to each surface conduction electron-emitting device is supplied as a difference voltage between a scanning signal and a modulation signal applied to the device.

The envelope 47 comprises the face-plate 46, the support frame 42, and the rear plate 41 as described above. Since the rear plate 41 is provided mainly for the purpose of reinforcing the strength of the substrate 31, if the substrate 31 itself has sufficient strength, the separate rear plate 41 can be unnecessary. That is, the support frame 42 is directly sealed to the substrate 31, and the envelope 4 is sealed by the face plate 46, the support frame 42 and the substrate 31.
7 may be configured. On the other hand, face-plate 46,
By installing a support (not shown) called a spacer between the rear plates 41, the envelope 47 having sufficient strength against atmospheric pressure can be configured.

In the display panel having the above configuration, individual elements can be selected using simple matrix wiring, and the selected elements can be driven independently.

FIGS. 23 and 24 are schematic views of the fluorescent film used in the image display device of FIG. The fluorescent film 44 in FIG. 22 can be composed of only a phosphor in the case of monochrome. In the case of a color fluorescent film, it can be constituted by a black conductive material 51 called a black stripe shown in FIG. 23 or a black matrix shown in FIG. 24 and a fluorescent material 52 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 52 of the necessary three primary color phosphors black in the case of color display so that color mixing and the like become inconspicuous, An object of the present invention is to suppress a decrease in contrast due to light reflection. 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.

As a method of applying the phosphor on the glass substrate 43, a precipitation method, a printing method, and the like can be adopted regardless of monochrome or color. Usually, a metal back 45 is provided on the inner surface side of the fluorescent film 44. The purpose of providing a metal back is
The light emitted from the phosphor toward the inner surface is converted to a face plate 4.
Improving the brightness by specular reflection to the 6 side, acting as an electrode for applying an electron beam acceleration voltage, and protecting the phosphor from damage due to collision of negative ions generated in the envelope 47. And so on. The metal back can be manufactured by performing a smoothing process (usually called “filming”) on the inner surface of the fluorescent film after manufacturing the fluorescent film, and then depositing Al using vacuum evaporation or the like.

On the face plate 46, the fluorescent film 4
A transparent electrode (not shown) may be provided on the outer surface side of the phosphor film 44 in order to increase the conductivity of the phosphor film 4.

When performing the above-described sealing, in the case of color, it is necessary to make each color phosphor correspond to the surface conduction electron-emitting device, and sufficient alignment is indispensable.

The image display device shown in FIG. 22 is manufactured, for example, as follows.

The envelope 47 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 the envelope 47 in the same manner as in the above-described stabilizing step. 7th power [Torr]
After setting the atmosphere to a sufficiently low degree of organic matter with a vacuum degree,
A seal is made. In order to maintain the degree of vacuum after sealing the envelope 47, a getter process may be performed. This is because the getter placed at a predetermined position (not shown) in the envelope 47 by heating using resistance heating, high-frequency heating, or the like immediately before or after the envelope 47 is sealed. Is a process of forming a vapor-deposited film by heating. The getter is usually composed mainly of Ba or the like, and by the adsorption action of the deposited film,
For example, a degree of vacuum of 1 × 10 −5 or 1 × 10 −7 [Torr] is maintained.
Here, steps after the forming process of the surface conduction electron-emitting device can be appropriately set.

Next, FIG. 25 shows an example of the configuration of a drive circuit for performing television display based on an NTSC television signal on the display panel shown in FIG. 22 constructed using electron sources in a simple matrix arrangement. It will be described using FIG.

FIG. 25 is a block diagram showing an example of an image display device which performs display according to an NTSC television signal.

In the figure, reference numeral 101 denotes a display panel corresponding to the display panel shown in FIG.
03 is a control circuit, 104 is a shift register. 10
5 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 Dox1
oxm, terminals Doy1 to Doyn, and high voltage terminal Hv
Connected to an external electric circuit via Terminal Dox
Scan signals for sequentially driving electron sources 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 by one (N elements) are provided in 1 to Doxm. Is applied.

To the terminals Doy1 to Doyn, a modulation signal for controlling an output electron beam of each element of one row of surface conduction electron-emitting elements selected by the scanning signal is applied. The high-voltage terminal Hv is connected to the DC voltage source Va, for example, by one.
A DC voltage of 0 K [V] is supplied, which is an accelerating voltage for applying sufficient energy to the electron beam emitted from the surface conduction electron-emitting device to excite the phosphor.

Next, 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),
The display panel 101 is electrically connected to terminals Dx1 to Dxm. Each of the switching elements S1 to Sm operates based on a control signal Tscan output from the control circuit 103, and can be configured by combining switching elements such as FETs (field effect transistors).

In the case of the present embodiment, the DC voltage source Vx has a drive voltage applied to an element that is not scanned based on the characteristics (electron emission threshold voltage) of the surface conduction electron-emitting element. It is set to output a constant voltage that is equal to or lower than the value 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 controls the synchronization signal Tsync sent from the synchronization signal separation circuit 106.
, Tscan, Tsft, and Tmry are generated for each unit.

The synchronizing signal separation 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 separation (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 represented 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 a DATA signal input serially in time series for each line of an image.
It operates based on the control signal Tsft sent from the control register 03 (that is, it can be said that the control signal Tsft is a shift clock of the shift register 104). The data for one line of the serial / parallel-converted image (corresponding to the drive data for the N elements of the surface conduction electron-emitting device) is represented by I
It is output from the shift register 104 as N parallel signals of d1 to Idn.

The line memory 105 is a storage device for storing data for one line of an image for a required time, 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 '
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 an output signal of which is output from the surface conduction electron-emitting device in the display panel 101 through terminals Doy1 to Doyn. Is applied to

As described above, the surface conduction 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, electron emission has a clear threshold voltage Vth, and electron emission occurs only when a voltage equal to or 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. For this reason, when a pulse-like voltage is applied to the device, electron emission does not occur even if, for example, a voltage lower than the threshold value Vth for emitting electrons is applied. In this case, an electron beam is output. At this time, the intensity of the output electron beam can be controlled by changing the pulse peak value Vm. In addition, it is possible to control the total amount of charges of the output electron beam by changing the pulse width Pw.

Therefore, as a method of modulating the surface conduction electron-emitting device according to the input signal, a voltage modulation method, a pulse width modulation method or the like can be adopted. 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.

In implementing the pulse width modulation method,
A pulse width modulation circuit that generates a voltage pulse having a predetermined peak value in the modulation signal generator 107 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
Reference numeral 5 may be a digital signal type or an analog signal type as long as the circuit performs serial / parallel conversion and storage of an image signal at a predetermined speed.

When the digital signal type is used, it is necessary to convert the output signal DATA of the synchronization signal separation circuit 106 into a digital signal. For this purpose, an A / D converter is provided at the output of the synchronization signal separation circuit 106. Just do it. In this connection, the circuit used for the modulation signal generator 107 is slightly different depending on whether the output signal of the line memory 105 is a digital signal or an analog signal. That is, in the case of the voltage modulation method using a digital signal, the modulation signal generator 107 includes:
For example, a D / A conversion circuit is used, 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. Also, if necessary,
It is also possible to add an amplifier for amplifying the pulse width modulated signal output from the comparator to the drive voltage of the surface conduction electron-emitting device.

In the case of the voltage modulation method using an analog signal, an amplification circuit using, for example, an operational amplifier or the like can be used as the modulation signal generator 107, and a level shift circuit or the like can be added as necessary. In the case of the pulse width modulation method, for example, a voltage-controlled oscillation (VCO) circuit 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 device having such a circuit configuration, electron emission occurs when a voltage is applied to each surface conduction electron-emitting device via the external terminals Dox1 to Doxm and Doy1 to Doyn. The electron beam is accelerated by applying a high voltage to the metal back 85 or the transparent electrode (not shown) via the high voltage terminal Hv. The accelerated electrons collide with the fluorescent film 84, thereby emitting light and forming an image.

The configuration of the image display device described here is an example, and various modifications are possible based on the technical idea of the present invention. For the input signal, the NTSC system has been described, but the input signal is not limited to this, and PAL, SEC
Other than the AM system, TV with more scanning lines
Signal (for example, high quality T including MUSE method)
V) system can also be adopted.

Next, the ladder-type arrangement of the electron source and the image display device will be described with reference to FIG.

FIG. 26 is a schematic diagram showing an example of a display panel of an image display device using an electron source having a ladder arrangement to which the present invention is applied. In FIG. 26, the same portions as those shown in FIGS. 6 and 22 described above are denoted by the same reference numerals as those shown in these drawings. The structure of the image display device shown in FIG. 26 differs from the image display device having the simple matrix arrangement shown in FIG. 22 in that a grid electrode 64 is provided between the electron source substrate 60 and the face plate 46. .

In the figure, reference numeral 64 denotes a grid electrode;
Is a hole for passing electrons, 62 is Dox1, Dox
2,..., Doxm. 63 is
An external terminal 60 composed of G1, G2,..., Gn connected to the grid electrode 64, and 60 is an electron source substrate in which the common wiring between the element rows is the same wiring.

The grid electrode 64 modulates the electron beam emitted from the surface conduction electron-emitting device, and applies the electron beam to a stripe-shaped electrode provided orthogonally to the ladder-shaped device row. In order to allow the light to pass through, one circular opening 65 is provided for each element. 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 the openings 65, and a grid may be provided around or near the surface conduction electron-emitting device.

Outer container terminal 62 and grid outer terminal 6
Reference numeral 3 is electrically connected to a control circuit (not shown).

In the image display device according to the present embodiment, a modulation signal for one line of an image is simultaneously applied to the grid electrode columns in synchronization with sequentially driving (scanning) the element rows one by one. Thus, the irradiation of each electron beam to the phosphor can be controlled, and the image can be displayed line by line.

The image display device of the present invention can be used as a display device of a television broadcast, a display device of a video conference system or a computer, or an image display device of an optical printer using a photosensitive drum or the like. Can be used.

[0171]

EXAMPLES Hereinafter, specific examples based on the above-described embodiments will be described, but the present invention is not limited to these examples, and each element within a range in which the object of the present invention is achieved. It is needless to say that the present invention also includes the one in which the replacement or the design change is made.

[Embodiment 1] In this embodiment, a large number of surface conduction electron-emitting devices are arranged in a simple matrix (the number of devices is 240 * 4).
80) This is an example of the method of manufacturing the electron source substrate, mainly an activation processing step of the electron source substrate. Hereinafter, the embodiment of the present invention will be specifically described with reference to FIG.

In FIG. 1, reference numeral 11 denotes an activation voltage source for generating an activation voltage pulse. Reference numeral 12 denotes a line selection unit that applies a voltage pulse generated by the activation voltage source to a required line. Reference numeral 13 denotes an ammeter for monitoring the total current value of the device current flowing through the surface conduction electron-emitting devices arranged on each line. A control unit 14 controls the activation voltage source 11 and the line selection unit 12 based on the element current value of one line detected by the ammeter 13. 10 has already been subjected to the forming process to be activated,
A plurality of surface conduction electron-emitting devices is an electron source substrate arranged in a simple matrix of M rows × N columns (M rows = 240, N = 480 and 240 rows × 480 columns). Here, the electron source substrate 10 is placed in a vacuum device (not shown), is placed in an atmosphere containing a gas of an organic substance, and the X-direction wirings Dx1 to DxM of the electron source substrate are activated. It is connected to Sx1 to SxM of the device. In this embodiment, the pulse width is 1 msec and the pulse period is 10 m.
sec, the voltage peak value is 14 V, and the maximum current capacity value Ima
An activation voltage source of x = 3 [A] was used.

In this embodiment, one row is defined as one group,
Two lines, that is, 12 groups are taken as one block, and all lines 24
Row 0 was divided into 20 blocks. Upon activation, the blocks were activated one by one in order. The activation processing method for the first block Dx1 to Dx12 will be described below.

The control unit 14 controls the line selection unit 12 to simultaneously select 12 lines so as to activate the surface conduction electron-emitting devices Dx1 to Dx12, and simultaneously selects 12 lines to activate the pulse voltage from the activation voltage source 11. The application was started. Then, the device current If flowing through the surface conduction electron-emitting device of each line was monitored by the ammeter 13 simultaneously with the application of the pulse voltage. Then, about 5 minutes after the start of the activation, the element current If of each line becomes 0.25 A, and the total value of the element currents If of all the lines becomes 3 A and reaches the maximum current capacity Imax of the activation voltage source. The number of groups to be activated (the number of lines) was reduced to six from Dx1 to Dx6, and activation was continued. Then, after 5 minutes, the element current If flowing through each line of Dx1 to Dx6 became 0.5 A, and the total value became larger than the maximum current capacity Imax of the activation voltage source. Dx7-D
It was changed to x12, and activation was simultaneously performed again for six of them. Five minutes later, the device current If flowing through each of the lines Dx7 to Dx12 became 0.5 A, and the total value again reached the maximum current capacity Imax of the activation voltage source.
Activation of the x12 line was interrupted.

Next, the line selection unit 12 is controlled so that Dx1
ＤDx4, the number of lines to be activated at the same time was reduced to four, and activation was continued. Then, activation of each line progressed in 10 minutes thereafter, and the element current If value of each line reached 0.75 A, and the total value of the four lines reached 3 A. Therefore, the lines to be activated simultaneously were changed to Dx5 to Dx8. Activation continued. Similarly, Dx9 to Dx12 were activated. Finally, when three of Dx1 to Dx3 are selected and the activation voltage is applied simultaneously to activate the device, the device current If value of each line is saturated at about 1A in about 10 minutes, and the activation of three lines is completed. finished. Similarly, by simultaneously activating three lines Dx4 to Dx12 sequentially for ten minutes, the element current If value of each line is saturated, and
Activation of all lines could be completed. This one
Activation of the surface conduction electron-emitting devices arranged on the two lines required a total of 85 minutes.

In the same manner as described above, the remaining 19
The block was also activated, and the activation for all 240 lines was completed. The time required to activate all lines is
The total time was 1700 minutes (28 hours and 20 minutes).

As a result of the activation as described above, the emission current characteristics between the respective surface conduction electron-emitting devices become substantially uniform, and the electron source having a plurality of the surface conduction electron-emitting devices is used. High quality images were obtained with the manufactured image display device (display device).

[Comparative Example 1] In Comparative Example 1, as shown in FIG. 1, an electron source substrate in which a plurality of surface-conduction type electron-emitting devices that had been subjected to forming processing were arranged in a simple matrix of 240 rows × 480 columns was used. And set in the conventional way
Activation was performed in order one line at a time.

At this time, when the device current value flowing through one line of the surface conduction electron-emitting device was monitored, the total value of If of one line was saturated at about 1 A in about 30 minutes.
In this case, it takes a total of 30 minutes × 240 = 7200 minutes (120 hours) to activate the entire 240 rows of the electron source, and the activation time becomes extremely long. Further, in the electron source activated by this method, a luminance distribution is generated between a portion at an early stage of activation and a portion at a later stage of activation, so that an electron source having uniform electron emission characteristics can be manufactured. Did not.

Even if the conventional method of simultaneously activating three lines at a time is employed, a total of 2400 minutes (40
Time), which also required much longer time than in Example 1, and it was not possible to produce an electron source having uniform electron emission characteristics.

As described above, according to the first embodiment, while monitoring the device current If flowing through the surface-conduction type electron-emitting device that is being activated, the number of lines that are simultaneously activated based on the monitored current value By reducing the (number of blocks), the activation time can be shortened and the electron emission characteristics of each element can be made uniform.

In this embodiment, an electron source substrate in which a plurality of surface conduction electron-emitting devices are arranged in a simple matrix has been described. However, the electron source substrate is connected to a plurality of surface conduction electron-emitting devices by ladder wiring. The same can be applied to an electron source substrate that has been used. Also, here, one line is 1
Activation is performed in the row direction unit as a group,
Needless to say, a group may be formed in a unit in the column direction and a voltage may be applied from a wiring in the column direction.

[Example 2] Hereinafter, Example 2 of the above embodiment will be described. The activation device in this embodiment is the same as that in the above-described first embodiment, except that a plurality of surface conduction electron-emitting devices, which have already been subjected to the above-described forming process, are connected to a ladder as an electron source substrate. An example of using is described.

FIG. 5 is a block diagram showing a configuration of an electron source activation device according to the second embodiment of the present invention, and shows an electron source activation device for activating a ladder-shaped electron source. In FIG. 5, the same components as those of the electron source activation device (FIG. 1) according to the first embodiment described above are denoted by the same reference numerals, and description thereof is omitted.

In FIG. 5, reference numeral 10 denotes an electron source substrate in which 480 surface-conduction-type electron-emitting devices, which have been subjected to forming processing and are activated, are arranged in a ladder shape over 240 rows. Here, the electron source substrate 10
It is placed in a vacuum device (not shown) and is placed under an atmosphere containing a gas of an organic substance. Half of the ladder-type wiring of the electron source substrate 10 is placed in the terminals D1 to DM and each line. It is electrically connected to the line selector 12 via an ammeter 13 for monitoring the total current of the device current flowing through the surface conduction electron-emitting device, and the other half is connected to the ground level (0 volt). In this embodiment, the pulse width is 1 msec, the pulse cycle is 2 msec,
The voltage peak value is 14 V, and the maximum current capacity value Imax = 3
The activation voltage source of [A] was used.

In this embodiment, one row is defined as one group,
Two rows, that is, 12 groups are defined as one block, and a total of 240
The row was divided into 20 blocks. Upon activation, activation was performed in order of five blocks. Specifically, D1 to D12 are formed in a first block, D13 to D24 are formed in a second block,... Hereinafter, an activation processing method for simultaneously activating the first to fifth blocks will be described. A method for simultaneously activating a plurality of lines by applying a voltage pulse is basically the same as that in the first embodiment.

In this embodiment, the first to twelfth lines in each of the second to fifth blocks are selected so as to correspond to D1 to D12 in the first block, respectively.

The control unit 14 first sets D1 in the first block.
12 lines are selected by turning on sw1 to sw12 in the line selection unit 12 so as to activate the surface conduction electron-emitting devices up to D12.
A voltage pulse is applied to the two lines from the activation voltage source 11.

At this time, sw1 to sw12 are turned on for one pulse period of the voltage pulse.
When the pulse is applied to the first block, it is immediately turned off, and immediately thereafter, sw13 to sw24 are turned on to apply a voltage pulse simultaneously to the 12 lines D13 to D24 of the second block. When the application of the pulse voltage to the second block is completed, sw13 to sw24 are turned off, and then sw
25 to 36 are turned on, and a voltage pulse is applied to 12 lines of the third block. In this way, the switches are sequentially switched for each block in accordance with the pulse output, and the pulse application is sequentially performed from the first block to the fifth block. By repeating this, simultaneous activation of 12 lines from the first to fifth groups is advanced. Here, in this embodiment, the pulse is applied to the five blocks in order, so that the line of each block has a pulse width of 1 m.
A rectangular wave of sec is applied at a period of 10 msec.

As the activation proceeds, the device current If flowing through each surface conduction electron-emitting device increases.
Element current If flowing in each line about 5 minutes after activation starts
Is 0.25 A, and the total value of the 12 lines has reached 3 A, which is the same as the maximum current capacity Imax of the activation voltage source. Therefore, the number of simultaneously activated lines in each block is reduced to six.
Activation continued. At this time, D1 to D1 in the first block
D6 is selected as a line to be activated at the same time, and the lines corresponding to D1 to D6 in the second to fifth blocks, for example, D13 to D18 in the second block are selected. In this order, a pulse voltage was applied one pulse at a time.

Thereafter, as in the first embodiment, the line and the number of lines to be simultaneously selected for the first block are changed, and the lines corresponding to the first block are also changed for the second to fifth blocks. Then, a pulse was sequentially applied to the first to fifth blocks. By repeatedly applying the pulse voltage in this manner, the activation was performed until the element current If of each line of the first to fifth blocks was saturated, and the activation of 60 lines D1 to D60 was completed. As a result, a total of 85 minutes were required to activate the 60 lines in the first to fifth blocks.

Similarly to the above-described method, the blocks were divided into the sixth to tenth blocks, the eleventh to fifteenth blocks, and the sixteenth to twentieth blocks, and the activation for all 240 lines was completed. Activation of all lines is 34 in total
It ended in 0 minutes (5 hours and 40 minutes).

As a result of the activation as described above, the emission current characteristics of each surface conduction electron-emitting device were substantially uniform, and the device was manufactured using an electron source having a plurality of the surface conduction electron-emitting devices. High quality images were obtained with the image display device (display device).

As described above, according to the second embodiment, while monitoring the device current If flowing through the surface conduction electron-emitting device that is being activated, the number of lines that are simultaneously activated based on the monitored current value By reducing the (number of blocks) and sequentially applying a pulse voltage to other blocks, the activation time can be reduced and the electron emission characteristics of each element can be made uniform.

In this embodiment, the present invention can be similarly applied to an electron source substrate in which a plurality of surface conduction electron-emitting devices are connected by simple matrix wiring.

Example 3 Hereinafter, Example 3 of the above embodiment will be described. In this embodiment, the same activation device and electron source substrate as those in the first embodiment are used. However, in this embodiment, an activation voltage source having a pulse width of 1 msec, a pulse cycle of 2 msec, a voltage peak value of 14 V, and a maximum current capacity value Imax = 3 [A] was used.

As in the case of the second embodiment, the surface conduction electron-emitting devices arranged in 240 rows × 480 columns on the electron source substrate have one row as one group and twelve rows (12 groups) as one group. Blocks were used, and the entire 240 rows were divided into 20 blocks. In the activation, the activation of the eleventh to twentieth blocks was performed in order of ten blocks, that is, after the activation of the first to tenth blocks was completed. Specifically, Dx1 to Dx12 are the first block,
x13 to Dx24 are the second block, Dx25 to Dx36
In the third block, and similarly, groups and blocks were formed up to the twentieth block. Hereinafter, an activation processing method for simultaneously activating the first to fifth and sixth to tenth blocks will be described. Same as 2.

In this embodiment, the first to twelfth lines in the second to fifth blocks are selected so as to correspond to D1 to D12 in the first block, respectively.

In the same manner as in the second embodiment, the processing of controlling the switches sw1 to sw120 by the control unit 14 and applying a pulse voltage to each of the 12 lines in each block one pulse at a time is performed from the first to the tenth blocks. Repeat in order. However, in this embodiment, since 10 blocks are simultaneously activated in a time-division manner, the line of each block has a pulse width of 1 ms.
The rectangular wave of ec is applied at a period of 20 msec, and the ratio of the pulse width to the application period of the voltage pulse at this time is 1/20.

As the activation proceeds, the device current If flowing through each surface conduction electron-emitting device increases.
Element current If flowing in each line about 7 minutes after activation starts
Becomes 0.25 A, and the total value of the 12 lines reaches 3 A, which is the same as the maximum current capacity Imax of the activation voltage source. Therefore, similarly to the second embodiment, the number of lines activated simultaneously in each block is reduced to six. , And the activation was continued for the six lines. At this time, in the first block, Dx1 to Dx6
Are selected as lines to be activated simultaneously, and the second to first lines are selected.
Lines corresponding to Dx1 to Dx6 in the 0 block, for example, Dx13 to Dx18 in the second block were selected, and a pulse voltage was applied to the selected lines one pulse at a time in the order of the first to tenth blocks. Thereafter, the element current If flowing through each of the six lines selected in about 7 minutes is 0.5
A was reached, and the total value of the six lines reached the maximum current capacity Imax of the activation voltage source. Therefore, the lines activated simultaneously were changed this time. Specifically, in the first block, six lines Dx7 to Dx12 are used, and the second to tenth lines are used.
In the block, lines corresponding to Dx7 to Dx12, for example, Dx19 to Dx24 are selected in the second block,
The activation was performed again while applying pulses in a time-division manner from the first block to the tenth block.

Up to this point, the control unit 14 controls the sw1 to sw so that the voltage is applied in order from the first to the tenth block.
Activation has been implemented by switching 120,
A method of activating the block 0 by dividing it into two blocks, a first block to a fifth block and a sixth block to a tenth block, is adopted. Specifically, the activation method of the first to fifth blocks will be described first.

Activation of each line has been progressing until the element current If reaches 0.5 A. This time, the number of lines to be selected at the same time was reduced to three, and activation was continued.
Here, as in the second embodiment, in the first block, Dx1 to Dx1
x3 is a line corresponding to the first block in the second to fifth blocks, for example, Dx19 to Dx2 in the second block.
No. 1 was selected, and activation was advanced again while applying a pulse voltage in order from the first to the fifth block in a time-division manner. At this time, the number of blocks that are sequentially activated in a time-sharing manner is reduced from 10 to 5 blocks, so that a rectangular wave having a pulse width of 1 msec is applied to the line of each block at a period of 10 msec. The ratio of the pulse width to the period is increased from 1/20 to 1/10.

Thereafter, for the first to fifth blocks, the lines to be simultaneously selected and the number of lines were changed in the same manner as in the second embodiment, and pulse voltages were applied in order from the first to fifth blocks. . By repeatedly applying a pulse voltage, activation is performed until the element current If of each line of the first to fifth blocks is saturated, and Dx
Activation of 60 lines from 1 to Dx60 has been completed.

Regarding the sixth to tenth blocks as well,
Activation is performed in the same manner as in the fifth block, and Dx61 to Dx61
Activation of 60 lines up to x120 has also been completed. that's all,
The time required to activate the 120 lines in the first to tenth blocks was 161 minutes in total.

Similarly to the above-described method, the first to twentieth blocks are subjected to an activation process of reducing the number of blocks to be activated at the same time and increasing the duty ratio, thereby activating all 240 lines. Was terminated. Activation of all lines was completed in 322 minutes (5 hours 22 minutes) in total.

As a result of the activation as described above, the emission current characteristics of the respective surface conduction electron-emitting devices were substantially uniform, and the device was manufactured using an electron source having a plurality of the surface conduction electron-emitting devices. High quality images were obtained with the image display device (display device).

As described above, according to the third embodiment, while monitoring the device current If flowing through the surface conduction electron-emitting device that is being activated, the number of lines that are simultaneously activated based on the monitored current value In addition to decreasing the (number of blocks), sequentially applying a pulse voltage to other blocks, and further increasing the duty ratio of the pulse voltage, the activation time is further reduced, and the electron of each element is reduced. The release characteristics can be made uniform.

In this embodiment, the present invention can be similarly applied to an electron source substrate in which a plurality of surface conduction electron-emitting devices are connected by ladder wiring.

In the first to third embodiments described above, the method of applying a voltage from one side of the wiring in both the row direction and the column direction has been described. However, the present invention is not limited to this. A method of applying a voltage may be employed.

[Embodiment 4] FIG. 27 is a block diagram showing a configuration example of an image display apparatus using a display panel having an electron source to which the present invention is applied. FIG. 3 is a diagram illustrating an example of a display device configured to be able to display image information provided from various image information sources such as a television broadcast on a used display panel.

In the figure, 70 is a display panel, 71 is a display panel driving circuit, 72 is a display controller, 73 is a multiplexer, 74 is a decoder, 75 is an input / output interface circuit, and 76 is C
PU, 77 is an image generation circuit, 78, 79, and 80 are image memory interface circuits, 81 is an image input interface circuit, 82 and 83 are TV signal receiving circuits, and 84 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. Descriptions of circuits, speakers, and the like relating to reception, separation, reproduction, processing, storage, and the like of audio information that are not directly related to the above are omitted.

The function of each section will be described below along the flow of image signals in the image display device shown in FIG.

First, the TV signal receiving circuit 83
This is a circuit for receiving a TV image signal transmitted using a wireless transmission system such as radio waves or spatial optical communication. The type of the TV signal to be received is not particularly limited.
Various systems such as the NTSC system, the PAL system, and the SECAM system may be used. Further, a TV signal composed of a larger number of scanning lines (for example, a so-called high-definition TV including the MUSE method) is suitable for taking advantage of the display panel suitable for a large area and a large number of pixels. Signal source. The TV signal received by the TV signal receiving circuit 83 is output to the decoder 74.

[0215] The TV signal receiving circuit 82 is a circuit for receiving a TV image signal transmitted using a wired transmission system such as a coaxial cable or an optical fiber. The format of the received TV signal is not particularly limited. In addition, the T
The V signal is also output to the decoder 74.

The image input interface circuit 81
Is a circuit that captures 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 74.

The image memory interface circuit 80
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 a decoder 74.

The image memory interface circuit 79
Is a circuit for taking in an image signal stored in the video disk, and the taken-in image signal is output to the decoder 74.

Further, the image memory interface circuit 78
Is a circuit for taking in an image signal from a device that stores still image data, such as a so-called still image disk. The taken still image data is input to the decoder 74.

Further, the input / output interface circuit 75
This is a circuit for connecting the display device to an external computer, a computer network, or an output device such as a printer. It goes without saying that input / output of image data and character / graphic information is performed, and in some cases, control signals and numerical data can be input / output between the CPU 76 provided in the display device and the outside. .

The image generating circuit 77 is used for displaying based on image data and character / graphic information input from the outside via the input / output interface circuit 75, or image data and character / graphic information output from the CPU 76. This is a circuit for generating image data. The circuit includes, 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, and the like. And other circuits necessary for generating an image.

The display image data generated by this circuit is output to the decoder 74, but may be output to an external computer network or printer via the input / output interface circuit 75 in some cases.

The CPU 76 mainly performs operations related to operation control of the display device and generation, selection and editing of a display image. The CPU 76 includes, for example, a multiplexer 73
The control signal is output to the display panel, and the image signal to be displayed on the display panel is appropriately selected or combined. At that time, a control signal is generated to the display panel controller 72 in accordance with the image signal to be displayed, and the screen display frequency, the scanning method (for example, interlaced or non-interlaced), and the number of scanning lines on one screen are determined. The operation of the display device is appropriately controlled.

Further, image data and character / graphic information are directly output to the image generation circuit 77, or an external computer or memory is accessed through the input / output interface circuit 75 to access the image data or character / graphic information. Enter

The CPU 76 may, of course, be involved in work for other purposes. For example, it may directly relate to a function of generating and processing information, such as a personal computer or a word processor. Alternatively, the computer may be connected to an external computer network via the input / output interface circuit 75 as described above, and work such as numerical calculation may be performed in cooperation with an external device.

The input section 84 is for the user to input commands, programs, data, and the like to the CPU 76. For example, in addition to a keyboard and a mouse, various inputs such as a joystick, a barcode reader, and a voice recognition device are provided. Input devices can be used.

The decoder 74 includes an image generation circuit 77
And a circuit for inversely converting various image signals input from the TV signal receiving circuit 83 into three primary color signals or a luminance signal and I and Q signals. As shown by the dotted line in FIG.
The decoder 74 desirably includes an image memory therein. This is for handling television signals that require an image memory when performing inverse conversion, such as the MUSE method. The provision of the image memory facilitates display of a still image, or facilitates image processing and editing including image thinning, interpolation, enlargement, reduction, and synthesis in cooperation with the image generation circuit 77 and the CPU 76. This is because the advantage of being able to do so is born.

The multiplexer 73 includes a CPU 76
A display image is appropriately selected based on a control signal input from the controller. That is, the multiplexer 73 is connected to the decoder 7.
A desired image signal is selected from among the inversely converted image signals input from 4 and output to the drive circuit 71. 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 7
Reference numeral 2 denotes a circuit that controls the operation of the drive circuit 71 based on a control signal input from the CPU 76.

First, as a signal related to the basic operation of the display panel, for example, a signal for controlling an operation sequence of a drive power source (not shown) for the display panel is output to the drive circuit 71.

Further, as a signal relating to the driving method of the display panel, 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 71.

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 71.

The drive circuit 71 is a circuit for generating a drive signal to be applied to the display panel 70, and operates based on an image signal input from the multiplexer 73 and a control signal input from the display panel controller 72. Things.

The function of each unit has been described above. With the configuration illustrated in FIG. 27, in this display device, image information input from various image information sources is displayed on the display panel 7.
0 can be displayed. That is, various image signals such as television broadcasts are inversely converted by the decoder 74, then appropriately selected by the multiplexer 73, and the selected image signals are input to the drive circuit 71. On the other hand, the display controller 72 generates a control signal for controlling the operation of the drive circuit 71 according to the image signal to be displayed. The drive circuit 71 applies a drive signal to the display panel 70 based on the image signal and the control signal. Thus, an image is displayed on the display panel 70. These series of operations are totally controlled by the CPU 76.

In this display device, the decoder 7
In addition to displaying the image memory incorporated in the image processing unit 4 and the image generation circuit 77 and information selected from the information, the image information to be displayed can be enlarged, reduced, rotated, moved, edge emphasized, thinned out, and interpolated. It is also possible to perform image processing such as image conversion, color conversion, image aspect ratio conversion, and the like, and image editing such as synthesis, deletion, connection, replacement, and insertion.

Although not particularly described in the description of this 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 is a television broadcast display device, a video conference terminal device, an image editing device that handles still and moving images, a computer terminal device, an office terminal device such as a word processor, a game terminal device, and a game device. It is possible to combine the functions of a machine and the like with one unit, and it has an extremely wide application range for industrial use or consumer use.

FIG. 27 shows only an example of the configuration of a display device using a display panel using a surface conduction electron-emitting device as an electron beam source, and it is needless to say that the present invention is not limited to this. No. For example, among the components shown in FIG. 27, circuits relating to functions that are not necessary for the purpose of use 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 video telephone, 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 source can be easily made thin. In addition, the display panel using surface conduction electron-emitting devices as the electron beam source is easy to enlarge the screen, has high brightness, and has excellent viewing angle characteristics. It is possible to display with good visibility.

[0240]

As described above, according to the present invention,
It is possible to activate an electron source having a plurality of electron-emitting devices in a short time, and to provide an activation device and an activation method for an electron source in which the activated electron-emitting devices have uniform electron emission characteristics.

[0241]

[Brief description of the drawings]

FIG. 1 is a block diagram illustrating a configuration of an electron source activation device according to an embodiment of the present invention.

FIG. 2 is a diagram illustrating a selection mechanism of a line selection unit in the electron source activation device as one embodiment of the present invention.

FIG. 3 is a flowchart showing activation processing of a control unit in the activation processing apparatus as one embodiment of the present invention.

FIG. 4 is a timing chart showing operation timings of the activation processing device as one embodiment of the present invention.

FIG. 5 is a block diagram illustrating a configuration of an electron source activation device according to a second embodiment of the present invention.

FIG. 6 is a schematic diagram showing an example of an electron source having a ladder arrangement to which the present invention can be applied.

FIG. 7 is a schematic diagram showing an example of a pulse voltage waveform at the time of activation processing in a surface conduction electron-emitting device applicable to the present invention.

FIG. 8 is a diagram showing changes over time of an element current If and an emission current Ie during activation processing in a surface conduction electron-emitting device applicable to the present invention.

FIG. 9 is a diagram illustrating an activation step in a surface conduction electron-emitting device applicable to the present invention.

FIG. 10 is a diagram showing an example of an output waveform of an activation voltage source in an activation step as one embodiment of the present invention.

FIG. 11 is a plan view showing a schematic configuration of a flat surface conduction electron-emitting device applicable to the present invention.

FIG. 12 is a cross-sectional view showing a schematic configuration of a flat surface conduction electron-emitting device applicable to the present invention.

FIG. 13 is a cross-sectional view showing a schematic configuration of a vertical surface conduction electron-emitting device applicable to the present invention.

FIG. 14 is a diagram illustrating a manufacturing process of a surface conduction electron-emitting device applicable to the present invention.

FIG. 15 is a diagram illustrating a manufacturing process of a surface conduction electron-emitting device applicable to the present invention.

FIG. 16 is a diagram illustrating a manufacturing process of a surface conduction electron-emitting device applicable to the present invention.

FIG. 17 is a schematic diagram showing an example of a voltage waveform in a current forming process of a surface conduction electron-emitting device applicable to the present invention.

FIG. 18 is a schematic diagram showing an example of a voltage waveform in the energization forming process of the surface conduction electron-emitting device applicable to the present invention.

FIG. 19 is a schematic diagram illustrating an example of a vacuum processing apparatus having a measurement evaluation function.

FIG. 20 is a diagram showing an example of the relationship between the emission current Ie and the device voltage Vf with respect to the device current If for the surface conduction electron-emitting device applicable to the present invention.

FIG. 21 is a schematic diagram showing an example of an electron source arranged in a simple matrix applicable to the present invention.

FIG. 22 is a schematic diagram illustrating an example of a display panel of an image display device using an electron source to which the present invention has been applied.

FIG. 23 is a schematic view of a fluorescent film used in the image display device of FIG. 22.

24 is a schematic diagram of a fluorescent film used in the image display device of FIG.

FIG. 25 is a block diagram illustrating an example of an image display device that performs display according to an NTSC television signal.

FIG. 26 is a schematic view showing an example of a display panel of an image display device using an electron source having a ladder arrangement to which the present invention is applied.

FIG. 27 is a block diagram illustrating a configuration example of an image display device using a display panel having an electron source to which the present invention has been applied.

FIG. 28 is a schematic view showing an example of a surface conduction electron-emitting device as a conventional example.

[Explanation of symbols]

1: substrate, 2, 3: element electrode, 4: conductive thin film, 5: electron emitting portion, 6: step forming portion, 10, 31, 60: electron source substrate, 11: activation voltage source, 12: line selection Department, 1
3, 15: ammeter for measuring element current If at the time of activation,
14: control unit, 16: anode electrode for capturing emission current Ie emitted from the electron emission unit of the device, 17: high voltage power supply for applying voltage to anode electrode 16, 18: emission from electron emission unit 5 of the device Ammeter for measuring emission current Ie, 19: power supply for applying device voltage Vf to surface conduction electron-emitting device, 20: vacuum vessel, 21: exhaust pump, 3
2: X direction wiring, 33: Y direction wiring, 34, 61: surface conduction electron-emitting device, 35: connection, 41: rear plate, 42: support frame, 43: glass substrate, 44: fluorescent film,
45: metal back, 46: face plate, 47:
Envelope, 51: black conductive material, 52: phosphor, 62: Dx
1 to Dx10 are common wirings for wiring the surface conduction electron-emitting devices, 64: grid electrodes, 65: holes for passing electrons, 66: external terminals made of Dox1, Dox2, ..., Doxm, 67: grid electrodes G connected to 64
, Gn, outside terminal of container, 101: image display panel, 102: scanning circuit, 103: control circuit, 1
04: shift register, 105: line memory, 10
6: synchronization signal separation circuit, 107: modulation signal generator,

Claims (9)

[Claims] 1. In an atmosphere in which a predetermined chemical substance is present,
An electron source activation device for activating a plurality of electron-emitting devices by repeatedly applying a predetermined pulse voltage to an electron source provided with a plurality of electron-emitting devices. When activating the electron-emitting devices included in the block, a predetermined pulse voltage is applied to the electron-emitting devices in at least one group included in the block. Voltage applying means for applying; current detecting means for detecting a current flowing through the electron-emitting devices of each group included in the block; and, in the block according to an increase in the total value of the currents detected by the current detecting means. Control means for controlling the voltage applying means, so as to reduce the number of groups to which the predetermined pulse voltage is simultaneously applied, Electron source activation device, characterized in that it comprises. 2. The method according to claim 2, wherein the plurality of blocks are defined to handle all of the electron-emitting devices provided in the electron source. 2. The electron source activation device according to claim 1, wherein the voltage application unit is controlled so that one pulse of a predetermined pulse voltage is applied in a time-division manner. 3. The electronic device according to claim 1, wherein the control unit increases the duty ratio of the pulse voltage as the number of groups to which the predetermined pulse voltage is simultaneously applied decreases. Source activation device. 4. The control means according to claim 1, wherein the sum of the currents is
2. The electron source activation device according to claim 1, wherein the number of groups to which the predetermined pulse voltage is simultaneously applied to the voltage application unit is reduced when the voltage application unit corresponds to the maximum output capacity. . 5. A plurality of electron-emitting devices provided in the electron source are arranged in a matrix in a horizontal direction and a vertical direction, and a plurality of electron-emitting devices included in one horizontal or vertical line. 5. The electron source activation device according to claim 1, wherein a plurality of electron-emitting devices are included in the one group. 6. 6. The electron source activation device according to claim 1, wherein the electron-emitting device is a planar or vertical surface-conduction electron-emitting device. 7. In an atmosphere in which a predetermined chemical substance is present,
An activation method of an electron source for activating a plurality of electron-emitting devices by repeatedly applying a predetermined pulse voltage to an electron source provided with a plurality of electron-emitting devices. When a plurality of groups are divided into a plurality of groups to form one block, and when the electron-emitting devices included in the block are activated, a predetermined pulse voltage is applied to the electron-emitting devices in at least one group included in the block. And applying the at least one pulse by applying the predetermined pulse voltage.
A method for activating an electron source, comprising: detecting a current flowing in one group; and decreasing the number of groups to which the predetermined pulse voltage is simultaneously applied in the block according to an increase in the detected current. 8. When all the electron-emitting devices provided in the electron source are handled by defining a plurality of the blocks, at least one group in each of the plurality of blocks is provided with the predetermined pulse voltage. 8. The method according to claim 7, wherein one pulse is applied in a time-sharing manner. 9. The duty ratio of the pulse voltage is increased as the number of groups to which the predetermined pulse voltage is simultaneously applied is reduced.
The method for activating the electron source according to the above.