JP2866307B2 - Electron emitting element, electron source, image forming apparatus using the same, and methods of manufacturing the same - Google Patents

Description

DETAILED DESCRIPTION OF THE INVENTION

[0001]

BACKGROUND OF THE INVENTION 1. Field of the Invention The present invention relates to a surface conduction electron-emitting device, an electron source provided with a plurality of such devices, and an image forming apparatus such as a display device or an exposure device using the electron source. In particular, it relates to a method for producing them.

[0002]

2. Description of the Related Art A surface conduction electron-emitting device utilizes a phenomenon in which an electron is emitted by passing a current through a conductive thin film formed on an insulating substrate in parallel with the film surface.

As a typical configuration example of a surface conduction electron-emitting device, a conductive thin film such as a metal oxide which connects a pair of device electrodes provided on an insulating substrate is referred to as forming in advance. One in which an electron-emitting portion is formed by an energization process is exemplified. Forming is usually performed by applying a voltage to both ends of the conductive thin film and conducting electricity.The conductive thin film is locally destroyed, deformed or altered to change its structure, and the electron-emitting portion is in an electrically high-resistance state. Is a process of forming The electron emission is performed from the vicinity of a crack generated in the electron emission portion by applying a voltage to the conductive thin film on which the electron emission portion is formed and causing a current to flow.

The above-mentioned surface conduction electron-emitting device has an advantage that it can be formed in a large number over a large area since it has a simple structure and is relatively easy to manufacture. Therefore, various applications for utilizing this feature are being studied. For example, it can be used for an image forming apparatus such as a charged beam source and a display device.

Conventionally, as an example of arranging a large number of surface conduction electron-emitting devices, a surface conduction electron-emitting device is arranged in parallel, and both ends (both device electrodes) of each surface conduction electron-emitting device are wired. (Also referred to as a common electrode). An electron source in which a plurality of rows each connected by a common electrode (also referred to as a common electrode) are arranged in a large number of rows (also referred to as a trapezoidal arrangement) (JP-A-64-31332;
83749, JP-A No. 2 -257 552 JP).

In particular, in the case of a display device, a flat panel display device similar to a display device using liquid crystal can be used, and a self-luminous display device that does not require a backlight is used as a surface conduction electron emission device. There has been proposed a display device in which an electron source in which a number of elements are arranged and a phosphor that emits visible light when irradiated with an electron beam from the electron source are combined (US Pat. No. 5,066,883).

On the other hand, a scanning tunneling microscope (hereinafter, referred to as “ST”) capable of observing minute irregularities or an electronic state of an object surface.
M ”. ) Has been developed. The STM controls the scanning of the probe while measuring the tunnel current between the probe and the surface of the object. The STM is mainly used as an experimental device in the field of surface physical properties, and currently provides a large amount of experimental data.
Further, in recent years, fine processing using an STM probe has attracted attention. There are many processing methods and many reports have been made. For example, Shigeyuki Hosoki, Go Hasegawa,
Journal of Japan Society of Applied Physics Vol.62, No.2 (1993), 15
Pages 5 to 159 include: 1) a method by electric field evaporation in which the surface of a material is directly shaved with a probe; 2) an atom of interest is electrically adsorbed to the tip of the probe by electromagnetic interaction between the probe and the atom; By desorption,
3) a method of exposing electrons or an electric field with a probe, 4) a method of exposing atoms at the tip of the probe, thereby disposing an atomic group on a material surface. There is a description of the method.

[0008]

In the above-described surface conduction electron-emitting device, it is difficult to design the film quality of the conductive thin film, particularly the strength distribution, and therefore, the shape (width, etc.) of the crack portion generated by the forming is limited. Variation is likely to occur. That is, in one device, the shape of the electron-emitting portion composed of the cracks varies, and as a result, the electron emission distribution in the device varies. Such a variation in the device can be statistically processed if the size of the device itself is sufficiently large with respect to the size (mainly the width) of the crack portion, and there is no problem. In order to construct an electron source arranged in a matrix and a high-definition image forming apparatus using the electron source, downsizing of elements is an essential requirement, which is a serious problem.

Further, in an electron source or an image forming apparatus in which a large number of elements are arranged and formed as described above, variation among the elements also poses a problem. That is, unevenness in luminance distribution and image unevenness occur, and a high-quality image cannot be obtained.

The present invention has been made in consideration of the above-mentioned problems of the prior art, and has been developed in a surface conduction electron-emitting device having a conductive thin film provided with an electron-emitting portion, an electron source using the same, and an image forming apparatus. It is an object of the present invention to reduce the variation in the electron emission characteristics within the device, and further reduce the variation in the electron emission characteristics among many devices.

[0011]

The structure of the present invention made to achieve the above object is as follows.

That is, a first aspect of the present invention is a method of manufacturing a surface conduction electron-emitting device in which an electron-emitting portion is provided on a conductive thin film provided between a pair of device electrodes provided on a substrate . After providing the electron emission portion on the thin film, the electron emission portion
A method for manufacturing an electron-emitting device, comprising a step of processing a projection with a microneedle.

[0013] use first as further its features, the probe of the scanning tunneling microscope as the microneedles of the present invention
Including that you are.

According to a second aspect of the present invention, there is provided a method of manufacturing an electron source comprising a plurality of surface conduction electron-emitting devices having an electron-emitting portion provided on a conductive thin film communicating between a pair of device electrodes on a substrate. with at least one of the plurality of surface conduction electron-emitting device, set the electron-emitting portion in the conductive thin film
The method of manufacturing an electron source according to claim 1, further comprising a step of processing the electron-emitting portion with a fine needle after firing .

The second aspect of the present invention is further characterized in that a probe of a scanning tunnel microscope is used as the microneedle.
The electron source has at least one element row in which a plurality of electron-emitting devices are arranged, and wirings for driving each electron-emitting element are arranged in a matrix.
The electron source may include at least one element row in which a plurality of electron-emitting devices are arranged, and wirings for driving each electron-emitting element may be arranged in a ladder configuration.

According to a third aspect of the present invention, there is provided an electron source comprising a plurality of surface conduction electron-emitting devices each having an electron-emitting portion provided on a conductive thin film communicating between a pair of device electrodes, on a substrate; in the manufacturing method of an image forming apparatus having an image forming member for forming an image by irradiation of electron beams emitted from with at least one <br/> among the plurality of surface conduction electron-emitting device, the conductive After providing the electron emitting portion on the thin film,
A method of manufacturing an image forming apparatus, comprising a step of processing an electron emitting portion with a fine needle.

The third aspect of the present invention is further characterized in that a probe of a scanning tunnel microscope is used as the microneedle.
The electron source has at least one element row in which a plurality of electron-emitting devices are arranged, and wirings for driving each electron-emitting element are arranged in a matrix.
The electron source may include at least one element row in which a plurality of electron-emitting devices are arranged, and wirings for driving each electron-emitting element may be arranged in a ladder configuration.

Further, the present invention resides in an electron-emitting device, an electron source or an image forming apparatus obtained by the above-mentioned manufacturing method of the present invention.

The basic structure of the surface conduction electron-emitting device according to the present invention is as shown in FIG.
Is a substrate, 2 is an electron emitting portion, 3 is a conductive thin film including the electron emitting portion, and 4 and 5 are device electrodes. Further, as shown in FIG. 2, the surface conduction electron-emitting device according to the present invention has a configuration in which the vertical relationship between the device electrodes 4 and 5 and the conductive thin film 3 is opposite to the device configuration of FIG. Good.

As the substrate 1, for example, quartz glass, Na
And glass having reduced impurity content such as glass, blue plate glass, a laminate obtained by laminating SiO ₂ on a blue plate glass by a sputtering method or the like, and ceramics such as alumina.

The materials of the opposing device electrodes 4 and 5 are as follows.
A general conductor material is used, for example, Ni, Cr, Au,
Mo, W, Pt, Ti, Al, Cu, metal or an alloy such as Pd, and Pd, Ag, Au, printed conductors composed of RuO _2, metal or metal oxide such as Pd-Ag and glass, etc. , In ₂ O ₃ —SnO _2, etc., and a semiconductor conductor material such as polysilicon.

The element electrode interval L, the element electrode length W, the shape of the conductive thin film 3 and the like are appropriately designed depending on the applied form and the like.

The distance L between the device electrodes is preferably several hundreds of μm to several hundreds of μm, and more preferably several μm to several hundred μm depending on the voltage applied between the device electrodes 4 and 5 and the electric field strength capable of emitting electrons. 10 μm.

The element electrode length W is preferably several μm to several hundred μm in consideration of the resistance value and electron emission characteristics of the electrode, and the element electrode thickness d is several hundred μm to several μm.

The conductive thin film 3 is particularly preferably a fine particle film composed of fine particles in order to obtain good electron emission characteristics, and its film thickness is determined by the step coverage on the device electrodes 4 and 5 and the device thickness. It is set as appropriate according to the resistance value between the electrodes 4 and 5 and the forming conditions described later. The thickness of the conductive thin film 3 is preferably several Å to several thousand Å, particularly preferably 10 to 500 、, and its resistance value is 10 to 500 Å.
The sheet resistance is ³ to 10 ⁷ Ω / □.

The main materials constituting the conductive thin film 3 are, for example, Ru, Ag, Au, Ti, In, Cu, Cr, Fe,
It is an oxide of a metal such as Zn, Sn, Ta, W, and Pb.

The fine particle film is a film in which a plurality of fine particles are aggregated, and has a fine structure not only in a state in which the fine particles are individually dispersed and arranged, but also in a state in which the fine particles are adjacent to each other or overlap each other (in an island shape). ). In the case of a fine particle film, the particle size of the fine particles is preferably from several to several thousand, particularly preferably from 10 to 200.

The electron emitting portion 2 includes a crack, and the electron emission is performed from the vicinity of the crack. The electron-emitting portion 2 including the crack and the crack itself depend on the film thickness, film quality, and material of the conductive thin film 3 and the forming conditions described later, and further, the manufacturing method such as a processing step which is a major feature of the present invention described later. It is formed. Therefore, the position and shape of the electron-emitting portion 2 are not limited to the positions and shapes as shown in FIGS.

The crack may have conductive fine particles having a particle size of several to several hundreds of mm. The conductive fine particles are similar to some or all of the elements of the material constituting the conductive thin film 3. Further, the electron emitting portion 2 including the crack and the conductive thin film 3 in the vicinity thereof may include carbon and a carbon compound.

Various methods are conceivable as a method of manufacturing the basic structure of the surface conduction electron-emitting device. The surface conduction electron-emitting device having the structure shown in FIG. An example of such a method will be described below. Steps a to c shown below correspond to (a) to (c) in FIG.

Step a: After sufficiently washing the substrate 1 with a detergent, pure water and an organic solvent, depositing an element electrode material by a vacuum deposition method, a sputtering method, or the like, and then depositing the material on the surface of the substrate 1 by a photolithography technique. Device electrodes 4 and 5 are formed.

Step b: An organometallic solution is applied on the substrate 1 provided with the device electrodes 4 and 5 and allowed to stand, so that the device electrode 4 and the device electrode 5 are connected to form an organometallic thin film. The organic metal solution is a solution of an organic compound containing a metal as a constituent element of the conductive thin film 3 as a main element. Thereafter, the organic metal thin film is heated and baked to form a conductive thin film 3 patterned by lift-off, etching, or the like. Here, the description has been given of the method of applying the organic metal solution. However, the present invention is not limited thereto. For example, the organic metal solution may be formed by a vacuum deposition method, a sputtering method, a chemical vapor deposition method, a dispersion coating method, a dipping method, a spinner method, or the like. A film can also be formed.

Step c: Subsequently, an energization process called forming is performed. When power is applied between the device electrodes 4 and 5 from a power supply (not shown), an electron-emitting portion 2 having a changed structure is formed at the portion of the conductive thin film 3. The conductive thin film 3 is locally destroyed, deformed or deteriorated by this energization process, and the portion where the structure is changed is the electron emitting portion 2.

FIG. 4 shows an example of a forming voltage waveform.

The voltage waveform is particularly preferably a pulse waveform.
There are a case where a voltage pulse having a pulse crest value as a constant voltage is continuously applied (FIG. 4A) and a case where a voltage pulse is applied while increasing the pulse crest value (FIG. 4B).

First, the case where the pulse peak value is a constant voltage will be described. T1 and T2 in FIG. 4A are the pulse width and pulse interval of the voltage waveform. For example, T1 is 1 μsec to 10 msec, T2 is 10 μsec to 100 msec,
The peak value (peak voltage at the time of forming) is appropriately selected according to the form of the above-mentioned surface conduction electron-emitting device, and is applied in a vacuum atmosphere for several seconds to several tens of minutes. Note that the voltage waveform to be applied is not limited to the illustrated triangular wave, and a desired waveform such as a rectangular wave can be used.

Next, a case where a voltage pulse is applied while increasing the pulse peak value will be described. T1 and T2 in FIG. 4B are the same as those in FIG. 4A, and the peak value (peak voltage at the time of forming) is increased by, for example, about 0.1 V steps. Is applied under an appropriate vacuum atmosphere as described in the above.

Note that, during the pulse interval T2, the conductive thin film 3
(See FIGS. 1 and 2) The element current was measured at a voltage that does not locally destroy, deform, or alter the element, for example, a voltage of about 0.1 V, and the resistance was obtained. For example, a resistance of 1 M ohm or more was shown. Sometimes the forming ends.

As described above, since it is impossible to strictly design the film quality of the conductive thin film 3, the electron-emitting portion 2 including the crack formed by the above-described forming process is used to form the film quality of the conductive thin film 3, particularly Reflecting the variation of the intensity distribution, the shape is not linear but generally meanders at random as shown in FIG. FIG. 14 shows a cross section taken along line AA ′ of FIG. Generally, also for the width W1 of the crack portion,
There is random location dependence, ie, variation. This causes non-uniformity of electron distribution at the time of electron emission.

According to the present invention, the non-uniformity of the electron distribution at the time of electron emission is substantially eliminated by processing the conductive thin film 3 including the electron emitting portion 2 having the above-mentioned variation with a fine needle. This will be described below.

In the processing step using the fine needle, for example, a processing technique using a scanning tunneling microscope (STM) as described in [Prior Art] can be used. FIG. 15 shows this state, and 501 is an STM probe.

As shown in FIG. 15, a crack formed in the conductive thin film 3 is cut by a probe 501 and shaped so that the crack width W1 becomes substantially constant. At this time, the distribution of the width W1 of the crack is observed in advance, the location to be cut is determined based on the observation result, and the position of the STM probe 501 and the crack is controlled during excavation.

Specifically, before cutting, the probe 501 and the position of the crack are determined using the performance of the STM as a microscope.
And the width W1 of the crack is observed, stored in a storage device in the control device of the STM, the location to be cut is determined from the stored data, and the tip 501 of the STM is controlled to cut the crack. .

Observation of the above cracks is not necessarily made by STM
It is not necessary to use a scanning electron microscope (SEM) or an atomic force microscope (AFM). Also, when cutting a crack, an AFM probe can also be used.

FIG. 16 shows an example of a plan view of an element having undergone the above-mentioned processing steps. As described above, in the electron emitting portion 2 including the crack portion shaped so that the width becomes constant regardless of the location,
The distribution of emitted electrons in electron emission becomes more uniform.

Preferably, an activation step is further performed.

The activation step is, for example, 10 ^-4 to 10 ^-5 T
Similar to the description of the forming process, a process of repeating application of a pulse with a pulse peak value of a constant voltage at a degree of vacuum of about orr, and converts carbon and carbon compounds from organic substances existing in a vacuum atmosphere into electrons. This is a step in which the state of the device current and the emission current can be significantly improved by depositing the light on the emission portion 2 (see FIGS. 1 and 2). This activation step is preferably performed while measuring, for example, the device current and the emission current, and is completed when, for example, the emission current is saturated, since it is effective and is preferable. In addition, the pulse peak value in the activation step is preferably a peak value of a driving voltage applied when driving the element.

The above-mentioned carbon and carbon compound are graphite (indicating both single crystal and polycrystal) and amorphous carbon (indicating amorphous carbon and a mixture thereof with polycrystalline graphite). Further, the deposited film thickness is preferably 500 ° or less, more preferably 300 ° or less.

The basic characteristics of the surface conduction electron-emitting device of the present invention thus obtained will be described below.

FIG. 5 is a schematic configuration diagram showing an example of a measurement evaluation system for measuring the electron emission characteristics of the surface conduction electron-emitting device. First, this measurement evaluation system will be described.

In FIG. 5, the same reference numerals as those in FIG. 1 denote the same members. Reference numeral 51 denotes a power supply for applying a device voltage Vf to the device; 50, an ammeter for measuring a device current If flowing through the conductive thin film 3 between the device electrodes 4 and 5; An anode electrode for capturing the emission current Ie to be emitted, 53 is a high voltage power supply for applying a voltage to the anode electrode 54, and 52 is for measuring the emission current Ie emitted from the electron emission portion 5. An ammeter, 55 is a vacuum device, and 56 is an exhaust pump.

The surface conduction electron-emitting device and the anode electrode 54 are installed in a vacuum device 55.
Is equipped with necessary equipment such as a vacuum gauge (not shown),
Measurement and evaluation of the surface conduction electron-emitting device can be performed under a desired vacuum.

The exhaust pump 56 is composed of a normal high vacuum system such as a turbo pump and a rotary pump, and an ultrahigh vacuum system such as an ion pump.
The entire vacuum device 55 and the substrate 1 of the surface conduction electron-emitting device can be heated to about 200 ° C. by a heater.

The basic characteristics of the surface conduction electron-emitting device described below are as follows. The voltage of the anode electrode 54 of the above-mentioned measurement and evaluation system is 1 kV to 10 kV, and the distance H between the anode electrode 54 and the surface conduction electron-emitting device. Is usually set to 2 mm to 8 mm.

First, the emission current Ie and the device current If,
FIG. 6 (a solid line in the figure) shows a typical example of the relationship between the element voltages Vf.
Shown in In FIG. 6, the emission current Ie is the device current Ie.
Since it is significantly smaller than f, it is shown in arbitrary units.

As apparent from FIG. 6, the surface conduction electron-emitting device has the following three characteristic characteristics with respect to the emission current Ie.

First, when a device voltage Vf higher than a certain voltage (referred to as a threshold voltage: Vth in FIG. 6) is applied to the surface conduction type electron-emitting device, the emission current Ie sharply increases. Below the threshold voltage Vth, the emission current Ie is hardly detected. That is, it is a nonlinear element having a clear threshold voltage Vth with respect to the emission current Ie.

Second, since the emission current Ie has a characteristic that monotonically increases with respect to the device voltage Vf (referred to as MI characteristic), the emission current Ie can be controlled by the device voltage Vf.

Third, the emission charge trapped by the anode electrode 54 (see FIG. 5) depends on the time during which the device voltage Vf is applied. That is, the amount of charge captured by the anode electrode 54 can be controlled by the time during which the device voltage Vf is applied.

The characteristic shown by the solid line in FIG.
Has the MI characteristic with respect to the element voltage Vf, and the element current If also has the MI characteristic with respect to the element voltage Vf. However, as shown by a broken line in FIG. On the other hand, a voltage control type negative resistance characteristic (referred to as VCNR characteristic) may be exhibited. Which property is shown
It depends on the manufacturing method of the element and the measurement conditions at the time of measurement. However,
Even if the device current If has a VCNR characteristic with respect to the device voltage Vf, the emission current Ie is M with respect to the device voltage Vf.
It has an I characteristic.

Because of the above-described characteristic characteristics of the surface conduction electron-emitting device of the present invention, even in an electron source or an image forming apparatus in which a plurality of devices are arranged, the amount of emitted electrons can be easily reduced in accordance with an input signal. It can be controlled and can be applied to various fields.

Next, the arrangement of the surface conduction electron-emitting devices in the electron source of the present invention will be described.

The arrangement of the surface conduction electron-emitting devices in the electron source according to the present invention is not limited to the ladder arrangement as described in the section of the prior art, or to the arrangement of n Y-direction wirings on m X-direction wirings. An arrangement method in which directional wiring is provided via an interlayer insulating layer, and an X-directional wiring and a Y-directional wiring are connected to a pair of device electrodes of a surface conduction electron-emitting device, respectively. This is hereinafter referred to as a simple matrix arrangement. First, the simple matrix arrangement will be described in detail.

According to the above-described basic characteristics of the surface conduction electron-emitting device, when the applied device voltage Vf exceeds the threshold voltage Vth, the electron is expressed by the peak value and the pulse width of the applied pulse voltage. The amount of release can be controlled. On the other hand, below the threshold voltage Vth, almost no electrons are emitted. Therefore, even when a large number of surface conduction electron-emitting devices are arranged, it becomes possible to apply a pulse-like voltage controlled in accordance with an input signal with only a simple matrix wiring and to select individual devices to be driven independently. .

The simple matrix arrangement is based on the above principle, and the structure of an electron source having a simple matrix arrangement as an example of the electron source of the present invention will be further described with reference to FIG.

In FIG. 7, the substrate 1 is a glass plate or the like as described above, and the number and shape of the surface conduction electron-emitting devices 104 arranged on the substrate 1 are appropriately set according to the application. It is.

Each of the m X-direction wirings 102 has external terminals DX1, DX2,.
A conductive metal formed by a vacuum deposition method, a printing method, a sputtering method, or the like is provided thereon. In addition, the material and the material are so set that the voltage is supplied to the many surface conduction electron-emitting devices 104 almost uniformly.
The film thickness and the wiring width are set.

Each of the n Y-directional wirings 103 has external terminals DY1, DY2,... DYn, and is formed in the same manner as the X-directional wiring 102.

These m X-directional wires 102 and n Y wires
An interlayer insulating layer (not shown) is provided between the direction wirings 103, and is electrically separated to form a matrix wiring. Note that both m and n are positive integers.

The interlayer insulating layer (not shown) is, for example, SiO ₂ formed by a vacuum deposition method, a printing method, a sputtering method, or the like, and has a desired shape on the entire surface or a part of the substrate 1 on which the X-directional wiring 102 is formed. In particular, the film thickness, material, and manufacturing method are appropriately set so as to withstand the potential difference at the intersection of the X-direction wiring 102 and the Y-direction wiring 103. Further, the X-direction wiring 102 and the Y-direction wiring 103 are led out as external terminals.

Further, the device electrodes (not shown) facing the surface conduction electron-emitting device 104 are provided with m X-direction wirings 102.
And n Y-directional wirings 103, vacuum deposition method, printing method,
Connection 1 made of conductive metal or the like formed by sputtering or the like
05 are electrically connected.

Here, the m X-directional wirings 102, the n Y-directional wirings 103, the connection 105, and the opposing device electrodes may have the same or some of the constituent elements, even if they are the same. Further, they may be different from each other, and are appropriately selected from the above-described materials of the device electrodes and the like. The wires to these device electrodes may be collectively referred to as device electrodes when the material is the same as the device electrodes. The surface conduction electron-emitting device 104 may be formed on either the substrate 1 or an interlayer insulating layer (not shown).

As will be described later in detail, a scanning signal is applied to the X-direction wiring 102 in order to scan a row of the surface conduction electron-emitting devices 104 arranged in the X-direction in accordance with an input signal. A scanning signal applying unit (not shown) is electrically connected.

On the other hand, a modulation signal (not shown) for applying a modulation signal is applied to the Y-direction wiring 103 in order to modulate each of the rows of the surface conduction electron-emitting devices 104 arranged in the Y direction according to an input signal. The signal applying means is electrically connected. The drive voltage applied to each surface conduction electron-emitting device 104 is supplied as a difference voltage between a scanning signal and a modulation signal applied to the surface conduction electron-emitting device.

The forming is performed by the X-direction wiring 102 and the Y
Electricity is supplied between the device electrodes 4 and 5 of the respective surface conduction electron-emitting devices 104 through the direction wiring 103 in the manner described above.

According to the present invention, the above-mentioned processing step using the microneedles can be performed on all of the plurality of surface conduction electron-emitting devices 104. However, due to the manufacturing cost, etc., it is remarkably different from other devices. It may be performed only for those having different element characteristics. As a result, variations among the elements can be reduced.

In particular, in the case of miniaturizing the elements and arranging a large number of elements at a high density, the luminance distribution in one element is likely to vary.
The processing step using the fine needle described above may be performed only on the element having unevenness in luminance distribution.

Next, an example of the image forming apparatus of the present invention using the electron source of the present invention having the above-described simple matrix arrangement will be described with reference to FIGS. 8 is a diagram showing the basic configuration of the display panel 201, FIG. 9 is a view showing the fluorescent film 114, and FIG. 10 is a diagram showing the display panel 201 of FIG.
It is a block diagram which shows an example of the drive circuit for performing television display according to the television signal of SC system.

In FIG. 8, reference numeral 1 denotes an electron source substrate on which the surface conduction electron-emitting devices are arranged as described above, 111 denotes a rear plate to which the substrate 1 is fixed, and 116 denotes a glass substrate.
A fluorescent film 114 serving as an image forming member
And a face play on which a metal back 115 and the like are formed.
And 112, a support frame. The rear plate 111, the support frame 112, and the face plate 116 are sealed by applying frit glass or the like to these joints and firing at 400 to 500 ° C. for 10 minutes or more in the air or a nitrogen atmosphere. To form an envelope 118.

In FIG. 8, reference numerals 102 and 103 denote an X-direction wiring and a Y-direction wiring connected to a pair of device electrodes 4 and 5 (see FIGS. 1 and 2) of the surface conduction electron-emitting device 104. Dx1 to Dxm, Dy1 to D
yn.

The envelope 118 includes the face plate 116, the support frame 112, and the rear plate 111, as described above. However, the rear plate 111 is provided mainly for the purpose of reinforcing the strength of the substrate 1, and if the substrate 1 itself has sufficient strength, the rear plate 1
11 is unnecessary, and the support frame 112 may be directly sealed to the substrate 1, and the envelope 118 may be constituted by the face plate 116, the support frame 112, and the substrate 1. Further, by further providing a support (not shown) called a spacer between the face plate 116 and the rear plate 111, the envelope 118 having sufficient strength against atmospheric pressure can be obtained.

The fluorescent film 114 is composed only of the phosphor 122 in the case of a monochrome, but is composed of the phosphor 1 in the case of a color.
Black stripes (FIG. 9A)
Alternatively, it is composed of a black conductive material 121 called a black matrix (FIG. 9B) and the like, and a phosphor 122.
The purpose of providing the black stripes and the black matrix is to provide the three primary color phosphors 12 necessary for color display.
The purpose is to make the color mixture or the like inconspicuous by making the painted portion between the two black, and to suppress a decrease in contrast due to reflection of external light on the fluorescent film 114. Black conductive material 12
As the first material, not only a material mainly containing graphite, which is generally used, but also other materials can be used as long as they are conductive and have little light transmission and reflection.

As a method of applying the phosphor 122 to the glass substrate 113, a precipitation method or a printing method is used regardless of monochrome or color.

Further, as shown in FIG.
A metal back 115 is usually provided on the inner surface side of 4.
The purpose of the metal back 115 is to reduce the light emitted from the phosphor 122 (see FIG.
Improving the brightness by specular reflection to the 6th side, acting as an electrode for applying an electron beam accelerating voltage from the high voltage terminal Hv, and damaging by the collision of negative ions generated in the envelope 118. Protection of the phosphor 122 from the laser beam. The metal back 115 can be manufactured by performing a smoothing process (usually called filming) on the inner surface of the fluorescent film 114 after the fluorescent film 114 is manufactured, and then depositing Al by vacuum evaporation or the like.

The face plate 116 may be provided with a transparent electrode (not shown) on the outer surface side of the fluorescent film 114 in order to further enhance the conductivity of the fluorescent film 114.

At the time of the above-mentioned sealing, in the case of a color, the phosphors 122 of each color must correspond to the surface conduction electron-emitting device 104, so that it is necessary to perform sufficient alignment.

The inside of the envelope 118 is evacuated to a degree of vacuum of about 10 ⁻⁷ Torr through an exhaust pipe (not shown) and sealed.
In addition, getter processing may be performed immediately before or after sealing the envelope 118. This is to heat a getter (not shown) disposed at a predetermined position in the envelope 118 by a heating method such as resistance heating or high-frequency heating.
This is a process for forming a deposition film. The getter is usually composed mainly of Ba or the like.
^{This is} for maintaining a degree of vacuum of ^-5 to 10 ^-7 Torr.

The above-described activation step is usually performed immediately before or after sealing the envelope 118, and the contents thereof are as described above.

The display panel 201 described above is, for example, shown in FIG.
Can be driven by a driving circuit as shown in FIG.
In FIG. 10, reference numeral 201 denotes the display panel;
202 is a scanning circuit, 203 is a control circuit, 204 is a shift register, 205 is a line memory, 206 is a synchronization signal separation circuit, 207 is a modulation signal generator, and Vx and Va are DC voltage sources.

As shown in FIG. 10, the display panel 20
1 is connected to an external electric circuit via external terminals Dx1 to Dxm, external terminals Dy1 to Dyn, and a high voltage terminal Hv. Of these, the external terminals Dx1 to Dx1
In xm, surface conduction electron-emitting devices provided in the display panel 201, that is, a group of surface conduction electron-emitting devices arranged in a matrix of m rows and n columns are sequentially arranged in a row (n elements). A scanning signal for driving is applied.

On the other hand, the external terminals Dy1 to Dyn
A modulation signal for controlling an output electron beam of each element in one row selected by the scanning signal is applied. The high voltage terminal Hv is connected to a DC voltage source Va at, for example, 10 kV.
Is supplied. This is an accelerating voltage for applying sufficient energy to the electron beam output from the surface conduction electron-emitting device to excite the phosphor.

The scanning circuit 202 has m switching elements therein (schematically indicated by S1 to Sm in FIG. 10).
Each of the switching elements S1 to Sm selects either the output voltage of the DC voltage source Vx or 0 V (ground level) and is electrically connected to the external terminals Dx1 to Dxm of the display panel 201. Things. Each of the switching elements S1 to Sm includes a control circuit 203
Operates on the basis of the control signal Tscan output by the device, and in fact, it can be easily configured by combining elements having a switching function such as an FET, for example.

In the present embodiment, the DC voltage source Vx has a driving voltage applied to the unscanned surface conduction electron-emitting device based on the characteristics (threshold voltage) of the surface conduction electron-emitting device. It is set to output a constant voltage that is equal to or lower than the value voltage.

The control circuit 203 has a function of matching the operations of the respective units so that appropriate display is performed based on an externally input image signal. A synchronization signal Tsyn sent from a synchronization signal separation circuit 206 described below.
Based on c, each control signal of Tscan, Tsft, and Tmry is generated for each unit.

The synchronizing signal separating circuit 206 is a circuit for separating a synchronizing signal component and a luminance signal component from an NTSC television signal input from the outside. ) With the circuit,
It can be easily configured. Sync signal separation circuit 206
The sync signal separated by is composed of a vertical sync signal and a horizontal sync signal, as is well known. Here, it is illustrated as Tsync for convenience of explanation. On the other hand, the luminance signal component of the image separated from the television signal is referred to as D for convenience.
This is illustrated as an ATA signal. This DATA signal is input to the shift register 204.

The shift register 204 is for serially / parallel-converting the DATA signal input serially in time series for each line of an image, and based on a control signal Tsft sent from the control circuit 203. Operate. This control signal Tsft is supplied to the shift register 20
4 may be rephrased as the shift clock. Also,
One line of serial / parallel converted image (equivalent to drive data for n elements of surface conduction electron-emitting device)
Are output from the shift register 204 as n parallel signals of Id1 to Idn.

The line memory 205 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 203. The stored contents are output as I'd1 to I'dn and input to the modulation signal generator 207.

The modulation signal generator 207 is a signal line for appropriately driving and modulating each of the surface conduction electron-emitting devices in accordance with each of the image data I'd1 to I'dn.
The output signal is applied to the surface conduction electron-emitting devices in the display panel 201 through the external terminals Dy1 to Dyn.

As described above, the surface conduction electron-emitting device has a clear threshold voltage for electron emission, and electron emission occurs only when a voltage exceeding the threshold voltage is applied. For voltages exceeding the threshold voltage,
The emission current also changes according to the change in the voltage applied to the surface conduction electron-emitting device. By changing a part of the material, configuration, and manufacturing method of the surface conduction electron-emitting device, the value of the threshold voltage or the degree of change of the emission current with respect to the applied voltage may be changed. You can say something like

That is, when a pulse-like voltage is applied to the surface conduction electron-emitting device, for example, even if a voltage lower than the threshold voltage is applied, electron emission does not occur, but a voltage exceeding the threshold voltage is applied. In this case, electron emission occurs. At that time, first, it is possible to control the intensity of the output electron beam by changing the peak value of the voltage pulse. Second, by changing the width of the voltage pulse, it is possible to control the total amount of charges of the output electron beam.

Therefore, as a method of modulating the surface conduction electron-emitting device according to an input signal, there are a voltage modulation method and a pulse width modulation method. In the case of performing the voltage modulation method, the modulation signal generator 207 generates a voltage pulse having a fixed length, and uses a voltage modulation circuit capable of appropriately modulating the pulse peak value according to input data. In the case of performing the pulse width modulation method, the modulation signal generator 207 generates a voltage pulse having a constant peak value, but a pulse width modulation method circuit capable of appropriately modulating the pulse width according to input data. Used.

The shift register 204 and the line memory 20
Reference numeral 5 may be a digital signal type or an analog signal type, as long as it can perform 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 206 into a digital signal. This can be achieved by providing an A / D converter at the output of the synchronization signal separation circuit 206.

In connection with this, the line memory 20
Depending on whether the output signal of 5 is a digital signal or an analog signal,
The circuit provided in modulation signal generator 207 is slightly different.

That is, in the case of a voltage modulation method using a digital signal, a well-known D / A conversion circuit may be used as the modulation signal generator 207, and an amplification circuit or the like may be added as necessary. In the case of a pulse width modulation method using a digital signal, the modulation signal generator 207 includes, for example, a high-speed oscillator, a counter (counter) for counting the number of waves output from the oscillator, and an output value of the counter and an output value of the memory. It can be easily configured by using a circuit in which comparators for comparison are combined. Further, if necessary, an amplifier may be added for amplifying the voltage of the pulse-width-modulated signal output from the comparator to the drive voltage of the surface-conduction electron-emitting device.

On the other hand, in the case of a voltage modulation method using an analog signal, an amplification circuit using a well-known operational amplifier or the like may be used as the modulation signal generator 207, and a level shift circuit or the like may be added as necessary. You may. In the case of a pulse width modulation method using an analog signal, for example, a well-known voltage-controlled oscillation circuit (VCO) may be used, and a voltage is amplified to a drive voltage of a surface conduction electron-emitting device as necessary. May be added.

The image forming apparatus of the present invention having the display panel 201 and the driving circuit as described above has the external terminals Dx1 to Dx1.
By applying a voltage from Dxm and Dy1 to Dyn, electrons can be emitted from an arbitrary electron-emitting device 104, and a high voltage is applied to the metal back 115 or the transparent electrode (not shown) through the high voltage terminal Hv. Bee
A television display can be performed according to an NTSC television signal by excitation / emission generated by accelerating the system and causing the accelerated electron beam to collide with the fluorescent film 114.

The configuration described above is a schematic configuration necessary for obtaining the image forming apparatus of the present invention used for display and the like. For example, detailed portions such as materials of each member are limited to the above-described contents. Instead, it is appropriately selected so as to be suitable for the use of the image forming apparatus. Although the NTSC system has been described as an example of the input signal, the image forming apparatus of the present invention is not limited to this, and may employ another system such as a PAL or SECAM system. For example, a high-definition TV system such as a MUSE system may be used.

Next, an example of the above-described ladder-shaped electron source and an image forming apparatus of the present invention using the same will be described with reference to FIGS.

In FIG. 11, reference numeral 1 denotes a substrate; 104, a surface conduction electron-emitting device; and 304, ten common wirings for connecting the surface conduction electron-emitting devices 104, each having external terminals D1 to D10. doing. A plurality of surface conduction electron-emitting devices 104 are arranged in parallel on the substrate 1. This is called an element row. These element rows are arranged in a plurality of rows to constitute an electron source.

By applying an appropriate drive voltage between the common wiring 304 of each element row (for example, the common wiring 304 of the external terminals D1 and D2), each element row can be driven independently. That is, a voltage exceeding the threshold voltage may be applied to an element row where electron beams are to be emitted, and a voltage lower than the threshold voltage may be applied to an element row where electron beams are not desired to be emitted. Such a drive voltage is applied to the common lines D2 to D9 located between the element rows, and the common lines 304 adjacent to each other, that is, the external terminals D adjacent to each other.
2 and D3, D4 and D5, D6 and D7, and D8 and D9 can be formed as a single common wiring.

FIG. 12 is a diagram showing the structure of a display panel 301 provided with the above-described trapezoidal arrangement of electron sources.

In FIG. 12, reference numeral 302 denotes a grid electrode,
Reference numeral 303 denotes an opening through which electrons pass, D1 to Dm denote external terminals for applying a voltage to each surface conduction electron-emitting device, and G1 to Gn denote terminals connected to the grid electrode 302. Further, the common wiring 304 between each element row is formed on the substrate 1 as an integral same wiring.

In FIG. 12, the same reference numerals as in FIG. 8 denote the same members, and the major difference between the display panel 201 using the electron sources in the simple matrix arrangement shown in FIG. The point is that a grid electrode 302 is provided between the electrodes 116.

The grid electrode 302 is provided between the substrate 1 and the face plate 116 as described above. The grid electrode 302 is capable of modulating an electron beam emitted from the surface conduction electron-emitting device 104. The grid electrode 302 applies the electron beam to a stripe-shaped electrode provided orthogonally to the ladder-shaped element rows. In order to pass
A circular opening 303 is provided one by one corresponding to each surface conduction electron-emitting device 104.

The shape and arrangement position of the grid electrode 302
It does not necessarily have to be as shown in FIG. 12, and a large number of openings 303 may be provided in a mesh shape.
4 may be provided around or in the vicinity.

The external terminals D1 to Dm and G1 to Gn are connected to a drive circuit (not shown). A modulation signal for one line of an image is applied to the column of the grid electrode 302 in synchronization with the sequential driving (scanning) of the element rows one by one, so that each electron beam is applied to the fluorescent film 114. The irradiation can be controlled and the image can be displayed line by line.

As described above, the image forming apparatus of the present invention
It can be obtained by using any of the electron sources of the present invention in a simple matrix arrangement or a trapezoidal arrangement, and is suitable not only for the above-described television broadcast display device, but also as a video conference system and a display device such as a computer. A device is obtained. Further, it can be used as an exposure device of an optical printer including a photosensitive drum and the like.

[0119]

The present invention will be further described with reference to the following examples.

Example 1 A surface conduction electron-emitting device having the structure shown in FIG. 1 was manufactured as the electron-emitting device of this example. FIG. 1A is a plan view of the device, and FIG. 1B is a cross-sectional view. In the drawing, W represents the width of the device electrodes 4 and 5, L represents the distance between the device electrodes 4 and 5, and d represents the thickness of the device electrodes.

A method for manufacturing the surface conduction electron-emitting device of this embodiment will be described with reference to FIG. The following steps a to c correspond to (a) to (c) in FIG.

Step a: A quartz substrate was used as the substrate 1 and this was sufficiently washed with an organic solvent.
The device electrodes 4 and 5 were formed. At this time, the element electrode interval L was 3 μm, the element electrode width W was 500 μm, and its thickness d was 1000 °.

Step b: Organic palladium (Okuno Pharmaceutical Co., Ltd.)
After applying a solution containing ccp-4230), 300
C. for 10 minutes to give palladium oxide (Pd
O) A fine particle film composed of fine particles (average particle size: 70 °) was formed, and was used as a conductive thin film 3. Here, the conductive thin film 3 had a width of 300 μm, and was disposed substantially at the center of the device electrodes 4 and 5. The thickness of the conductive thin film 3 is 100 °,
The sheet resistance was 5 × 10 ⁴ Ω / □.

The particle diameter of the fine particles described herein means the diameter of the fine particles whose particle shape can be recognized.

Step c: A voltage is applied between the device electrodes 4 and 5 to form the conductive thin film 3 so that
The electron emission part 2 was formed. FIG. 4 shows the forming process.
The voltage waveform shown in (a) was used.

In this embodiment, T1 is 1 msec, and T2 is 10 msec.
Seconds, the peak value of the triangular wave (peak voltage at the time of forming) is 5 V, and the forming process is about 1 × 10 ⁻⁶ To.
This was performed in a vacuum atmosphere of rr for 60 seconds. The electron-emitting portion 2 thus formed contained cracks, in which fine particles mainly composed of palladium were dispersed and arranged, and the average particle size of the fine particles was 30 °.

The electron emission characteristics of the surface conduction electron-emitting device manufactured as described above were measured using the measurement evaluation system shown in FIG.

The measurement conditions were as follows: the distance H between the anode electrode 54 and the surface conduction type electron-emitting device was 4 mm; the potential of the anode electrode 54 was 1 kV;
The degree of vacuum in 5 was set to about 1 × 10 ⁻⁶ Torr. As a result, in the device of this example, current-voltage characteristics as shown by the solid line in FIG. 6 were obtained. In this element, the element voltage is 8V
The emission current Ie suddenly increases from about
And the device current If is 2.2 mA and the emission current Ie is 1.1 μm.
A, and the electron emission efficiency η = Ie / If (%) is 0.0
5%.

In the above-described measurement and evaluation system, the face plate 1 shown in FIG.
A target member having the same configuration as that of No. 16 was arranged, and electrons were emitted from the surface conduction electron-emitting device to form a bright spot on the target member. Observation of the brightness distribution of the luminescent spots confirmed unevenness in brightness, which is considered to be caused by variations in the cracks of the electron-emitting portion 2.

Subsequently, the above-described surface conduction electron-emitting device was subjected to a processing step using a microneedle, which is a feature of the present invention.

In this embodiment, first, the shape of the cracked portion of the electron-emitting portion 2 was observed by the STM function as a microscope. As a result, randomly meandering cracks were confirmed as shown in FIG. 13, and the width of the cracks was 10 nm to 200 nm.
It varied in the range of nm.

Next, the crack to be cut was determined so that the width of the crack was adjusted to 100 nm, and the crack was cut by controlling the STM probe 501 as shown in FIG.

To confirm the shape of the crack after shaping,
When observed again by STM, the width of the crack was 90
nm to 150 nm.

Although not performed in the present embodiment, for example, as shown in FIG. 22, the width of the crack portion may be controlled regularly. FIG. 22A shows the shape before correction.
FIG. 22B is an example of the shape after correction. For example, 10
5 nm cracks with a width of 5 nm and 20 cracks with a width of 50 nm or more.
, And the shape was corrected by controlling so that cracks having a width of 10 nm could be formed at 25 places at approximately 1000 nm. The example shown in FIG. 22C is an example in which the shape is corrected to a triangular shape.

As described above, the essence of the present invention lies in the correction of the crack shape, and the optimum shape is selected depending on the material and the activation method.

Electrons were emitted from the surface conduction electron-emitting device of the present invention obtained as described above, a bright spot was formed on the target member in the same manner as above, and the brightness distribution of this bright spot was observed. There was almost no luminance unevenness.

[Embodiment 2] In this embodiment, an image forming apparatus as shown in FIG. 8 is used by using an electron source as shown in FIG. 7 in which a large number of surface conduction electron-emitting devices are arranged in a simple matrix. An example of fabrication will be described.

FIG. 17 is a plan view of a part of the electron source. FIG. 18 is a sectional view taken along the line AA ′ in the figure. However, the same reference numerals in FIGS. 7, 8, 17, and 18 indicate the same members.

Here, 1 is a substrate, 102 is an X-direction wiring (also called a lower wiring), 103 is a Y-direction wiring (also called an upper wiring), 3 is a conductive thin film, 4 and 5 are element electrodes, and 401
And 402, a contact hole for electrical connection between the element electrode 4 and the lower wiring 102.

First, a method of manufacturing an electron source will be specifically described with reference to FIGS. In addition, the following steps a to
h corresponds to (a) to (h) of FIG.

Step a: On a substrate 1 having a 0.5 μm thick silicon oxide film formed on a cleaned blue plate glass by a sputtering method, a Cr film having a thickness of 50 ° and a thickness of 6 mm was formed by vacuum evaporation.
000 of Au is sequentially laminated, and then the photoresist (AZ
1370 Hoechst Co.) is spin-coated and baked with a spinner, and the photomask image is exposed and developed to form a resist pattern for the lower wiring 102, and the Au / Cr deposited film is wet-etched to obtain a desired pattern. Wiring 1 of shape
02 was formed.

Step b: Next, an interlayer insulating layer 401 made of a silicon oxide film having a thickness of 1.0 μm was deposited by RF sputtering.

Step c: A photoresist pattern for forming the contact hole 402 is formed on the silicon oxide film deposited in the step b, and this is used as a mask to form the interlayer insulating layer 40.
1 was etched to form a contact hole 402. Etching using CF ₄ and H ₂ gas RIE (R
active Ion Etching) method.

Step d: Thereafter, a pattern to be a gap G between the device electrodes 4 and 5 and the device electrode is formed by a photoresist (R
D-2000N-41, manufactured by Hitachi Chemical Co., Ltd.), and a vacuum evaporation method is used to form a 50-mm thick Ti and a 1000-mm thick N.
i were sequentially deposited. The photoresist pattern was dissolved in an organic solvent, and the Ni / Ti deposited film was lifted off to form device electrodes 4 and 5 having a device electrode interval L of 3 μm and a width W1 of 300 μm.

Step e: Upper wiring 10 on device electrodes 4 and 5
After a photoresist pattern of No. 3 was formed, Ti with a thickness of 50 ° and Au with a thickness of 5000 ° were sequentially deposited by vacuum evaporation, and unnecessary portions were removed by lift-off to form an upper wiring 103 having a desired shape. .

Step f: FIG. 20 shows a part of a plan view of a mask of the conductive thin film 3 involved in this step. This is a mask having a gap L between device electrodes and an opening in the vicinity thereof. A Cr film 403 having a thickness of 1000 堆積 is deposited and patterned by vacuum deposition using the mask, and an organic P is formed thereon.
d (ccp-4230 manufactured by Okuno Pharmaceutical Co., Ltd.) was spin-coated with a spinner and heated and baked at 300 ° C. for 10 minutes. The conductive thin film 3 made of fine particles of Pd as a main element thus formed has a thickness of 100 °.
The sheet resistance was 5 × 10 ⁴ Ω / □.

Step g: Cr film 403 by lift-off method
To remove the conductive thin film 3 having a desired pattern shape.
Was formed.

Step h: A resist was applied to the entire surface, exposed and developed using a mask, and the resist was removed only in the contact hole 402. Thereafter, by vacuum evaporation, Ti with a thickness of 50 ° and Au with a thickness of 5000 ° are sequentially deposited.
Unnecessary portions were removed by lift-off to bury the contact holes 402.

According to the above steps, the lower wiring 10
2, interlayer insulating layer 401, upper wiring 103, element electrode 4,
5. The conductive thin film 3 and the like were formed to obtain an unformed electron source.

Next, a voltage is applied between the device electrodes 4 and 5 of each of the surface conduction electron-emitting devices through the lower wiring 102 and the upper wiring 103 in the manner described in Embodiment 1, and the above-described forming process is performed. The electron emission part 2 was formed.

In the measurement evaluation system shown in FIG. 5, a target member having the same structure as the face plate 116 shown in FIG.
Electrons were emitted from all the surface conduction electron-emitting devices of the above-mentioned electron source to form many bright spots on the target member.
Observation of variations in the brightness of these bright spots revealed that 5% by number had brightness that was 1.3 times or more the average brightness of all the bright spots.

Subsequently, the above electron source was subjected to a processing step using a microneedle, which is a feature of the present invention.

In the present embodiment, only the surface conduction electron-emitting device corresponding to a bright spot having a luminance of 1.3 times or more the average value of the luminance of all the bright spots previously observed is shown in the first embodiment. The cracked portion of the electron emission portion 2 was shaped in the same manner.

In the electron source of the present invention obtained as described above, electrons are emitted from the all-surface-conduction electron-emitting device, and a large number of bright spots are formed on the target member in the same manner as described above. Of the sample was observed. As a result, the brightness of the surface conduction electron-emitting device in which the crack portion was shaped was reduced, and the variation in the brightness of each bright spot was reduced.

Next, an image forming apparatus was manufactured using the above-mentioned electron source. The manufacturing procedure will be described below with reference to FIGS.

First, the substrate 1 of the electron source was placed on the rear plate 11.
After fixing the substrate 1, a face plate 116 (formed by forming a fluorescent film 114 as an image forming member and a metal back 115 on the inner surface of a glass substrate 113) is formed 5 mm above the substrate 1. Arranged via the support frame 112, the face plate 116, the support frame 112, the rear plate 1
Frit glass is applied to the joints of No. 11 and 40 in air.
Sealing was performed by baking at 0 ° C. to 500 ° C. for 10 minutes or more. The fixing of the substrate 1 to the rear plate 111 was also performed using frit glass.

The fluorescent film 114 serving as an image forming member
Is made of only a phosphor in the case of a monochrome, but in this embodiment, the phosphor adopts a stripe shape (see FIG. 9A), and a black stripe is formed first with the black conductive material 121, and Each color phosphor 12 is formed in the gap by the slurry method.
2 was applied to form a fluorescent film 114. Black conductive material 12
As 1, a commonly used material mainly composed of graphite was used.

Further, a metal back 115 was provided on the inner surface side of the fluorescent film 114. The metal back 115 is the fluorescent film 1
After the fabrication of 14, a smoothing process (usually called filming) of the inner surface of the fluorescent film 114 is performed, and then A
1 was produced by vacuum evaporation.

In the face plate 116, a transparent electrode may be provided on the outer surface side of the fluorescent film 114 in order to further enhance the conductivity of the fluorescent film 114, but in this embodiment, only the metal back 115 is provided. Omitted because sufficient conductivity was obtained.

At the time of performing the above-mentioned sealing, since the phosphors 122 of each color must correspond to the electron-emitting devices 104 in the case of color, sufficient alignment was performed.

Thereafter, the envelope 1 is passed through an exhaust pipe (not shown).
The inside of the vessel 18 was evacuated to a degree of vacuum of about 10 ^−6.5 Torr, and the exhaust pipe was heated and welded with a gas burner to seal the envelope 118. Finally, gettering was performed by a high-frequency heating method in order to maintain the degree of vacuum after sealing. The getter contained Ba as a main component.

In the display panel 201 (see FIG. 8) constituted by using the electron sources having the simple matrix arrangement as described above, the scanning signal and the modulation signal are not shown through the external terminals Dx1 to Dxm and Dy1 to Dyn. Electrons are emitted by applying them to the electron-emitting devices 104 by the signal generating means, and a high voltage of several kV or more is applied to the metal back 115 through the high-voltage terminal Hv to accelerate the electron beam and collide with the fluorescent film 114. The image was displayed by exciting and emitting light. As a result, in the electron source of this example, the dispersion of the electron emission characteristics among the surface conduction electron-emitting devices was small, and an extremely good image was obtained.

[Embodiment 3] FIG. 21 shows a display panel (display panel) 201 (see FIG. 8) of the embodiment 2 in which image information provided from various image information sources such as television broadcasting is displayed. FIG. 1 is a diagram illustrating an example of an image display device of the present invention configured to be able to display.

In the figure, reference numeral 201 denotes a display panel;
1 is a display panel driving circuit, 1002 is a display controller, 1003 is a multiplexer, 10
04 is a decoder, 1005 is an input / output interface circuit, 1006 is a CPU, 1007 is an image generation circuit, 10
08, 1009 and 1010 are image memory interface circuits, 1011 is an image input interface circuit,
1012 and 1013 are TV signal receiving circuits, and 1014 is an input unit.

When the present display device receives a signal including 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 related to reception, separation, reproduction, processing, storage, and the like of audio information that are not directly related to the features of the present invention are omitted.

Hereinafter, each part will be described along the flow of the image signal.

First, the TV signal receiving circuit 1013 is a circuit for receiving a TV image signal transmitted using a wireless transmission system such as radio waves or spatial optical communication.

The format of the received TV signal is not particularly limited. For example, NTSC, PAL, SE
Various systems such as the CAM system may be used. Further, a TV signal composed of a larger number of scanning lines than these, for example, a so-called high-definition TV including the MUSE system is suitable for taking advantage of the display panel 201 suitable for a large area and a large number of pixels. Signal source.

T received by TV signal receiving circuit 1013
The V signal is output to the decoder 1004.

The image TV signal receiving circuit 1012 is a circuit for receiving a TV image signal transmitted using a wired transmission system such as a coaxial cable or an optical fiber. Similarly to the TV signal receiving circuit 1013, the system of the TV signal to be received is not particularly limited, and the TV signal received by this circuit is also output to the decoder 1004.

Image input interface circuit 1011
Is a circuit for capturing an image signal supplied from an image input device such as a TV camera or an image reading scanner. The captured image signal is output to the decoder 1004.

Image memory interface circuit 1010
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 1004.

Image memory interface circuit 1009
Is a circuit for taking in an image signal stored in a video disk.
04 is output.

Image memory-interface circuit 100
Reference numeral 8 denotes a circuit for capturing an image signal from a device storing still image data, such as a so-called still image disk.
Is output to

The input / output interface circuit 1005 comprises:
This is a circuit for connecting the present display device to an output device such as an external computer, computer network, or printer. In addition to inputting and outputting image data and character / graphic information, control signals and numerical data can be input and output between the CPU 1006 of the display device and the outside in some cases.

The image generation circuit 1007 includes image data and character / graphic information input from the outside via the input / output interface circuit 1005, or the CPU 1006.
This is a circuit for generating display image data based on the image data and character / graphic information output from the display unit. Inside this circuit, for example, a rewritable memory for storing image data and character / graphic information, a read-only memory storing an image pattern corresponding to a character code,
A circuit necessary for generating an image such as a processor for performing image processing is incorporated therein.

The display image data generated by this circuit is output to the decoder 1004, but may be output to an external computer network or printer via the input / output interface circuit 1005 in some cases.

The CPU 1006 mainly performs operations related to operation control of the display device and generation, selection, and editing of a display image.

For example, a control signal is output to the multiplexer 1003, and image signals to be displayed on the display panel 201 are appropriately selected or combined. At that time, a control signal is generated for the display panel controller 1002 in accordance with an image signal to be displayed, and a display frequency, a scanning method (for example, interlaced or non-interlaced), and the number of scanning lines per screen are displayed. The operation of the device is appropriately controlled. Further, image data and character / graphic information are directly output to the image generation circuit 1007,
Alternatively, an external computer or memory is accessed via the input / output interface circuit 1005 to input image data and character / graphic information.

The CPU 1006 may, of course, be involved in work for other purposes. For example, it may be directly related to a function of generating and processing information, such as a personal computer or a word processor. Alternatively, as described above, the computer may be connected to an external computer network via the input / output interface circuit 1005 to perform operations such as numerical calculations in cooperation with external devices.

The input unit 1014 is for the user to input commands, programs, data, and the like to the CPU 1006. For example, in addition to a keyboard and a mouse,
Various input devices such as a joystick, a barcode reader, and a voice recognition device can be used.

The decoder 1004 converts various image signals input from the above 1007 to 1013 into three primary color signals,
Alternatively, it is a circuit for inversely converting a luminance signal into an I signal and a Q signal. As shown by the dotted line in FIG.
004 preferably has an internal image memory. 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 the display of a still image. Alternatively, in cooperation with the image generation circuit 1007 and the CPU 1006, there is obtained an advantage that image processing and editing including image thinning, interpolation, enlargement, reduction, and synthesis become easy.

The multiplexer 1003 is connected to the CPU 10
A display image is appropriately selected based on a control signal input from the controller 06. That is, the multiplexer 1003 selects a desired image signal from the inversely converted image signals input from the decoder 1004 and outputs the selected image signal to the drive circuit 1001. In that case, by switching and selecting an image signal within one screen display time, it is also 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. .

Display panel controller 1002
Is a circuit for controlling the operation of the drive circuit 1001 based on a control signal input from the CPU 1006.

For example, the display panel 201 is related to the basic operation of the display panel 201.
A signal for controlling the operation sequence of the driving power supply (not shown) is output to the driving circuit 1001. As a method related to the driving method of the display panel 201, a signal for controlling, for example, a screen display frequency and a scanning method (for example, interlaced or non-interlaced) is output to the driving circuit 1001. In some cases, a control signal relating to image quality adjustment such as luminance, contrast, color tone, and sharpness of a display image is supplied to the driving circuit 10.
01 may be output.

The driving circuit 1001 is a circuit for generating a driving signal to be applied to the display panel 201, based on an image signal input from the multiplexer 1003 and a control signal input from the display panel controller 1002. It works.

The function of each unit has been described above. With the configuration illustrated in FIG. 21, in this display device, image information input from various image information sources is displayed on the display panel 2.
01 can be displayed. That is, various image signals including television broadcasting are supplied to the decoder 1004.
After being inversely converted in, the signal is appropriately selected in the multiplexer 1003 and input to the drive circuit 1001. On the other hand, the display controller 1002 generates a control signal for controlling the operation of the driving circuit 1001 according to the image signal to be displayed. The drive circuit 1001 applies a drive signal to the display panel 201 based on the image signal and the control signal. Thus, an image is displayed on the display panel 201. These series of operations are totally controlled by the CPU 1006.

In the present image forming apparatus, the image memory incorporated in the decoder 1004 and the image generation circuit 100
7 and the CPU 1006 involve not only displaying a selected one of a plurality of pieces of image information but also enlarging, reducing, rotating, moving, edge emphasizing, thinning out, and interpolating the image information to be displayed. It is also possible to perform image processing such as color conversion, image aspect ratio conversion and the like, and image editing such as synthesis, erasure, connection, replacement, and fitting. Although not particularly described in the description of the present embodiment, a dedicated circuit for processing and editing audio information may be provided as in the above-described image processing and image editing.

Therefore, the present image forming apparatus can be used for a television broadcast display device, a video conference terminal device, an image editing device for handling still images and moving images, a computer terminal device, an office terminal device such as a word processor,
It is possible to combine functions such as game machines with one unit,
It has a very wide range of applications for industrial or consumer use.

FIG. 21 shows only an example of the configuration of an image forming apparatus using a display panel using an electron-emitting device as an electron beam source, and the image forming apparatus of the present invention is not limited to this. It goes without saying that it is not limited.

For example, among the components shown in FIG. 21, 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 image forming apparatus is applied as a videophone, it is preferable to add a transmission / reception circuit including a television camera, an audio microphone, an illuminator, and a modem to the components.

In the present image forming apparatus, in particular, since the display panel 201 according to the present invention can be easily made thin, the depth of the display device can be reduced. In addition, since it is easy to enlarge the screen, the brightness is high, and the viewing angle characteristics are excellent, it is possible to display an image full of a sense of reality and full of power with good visibility.

[0194]

As described above, according to the present invention,
It is possible to design a crack portion that becomes an electron emission portion, and it is possible to reduce variation in electron emission distribution in one device.

Further, even when the elements are miniaturized in order to form a large number of elements at higher density, the variation in the electron emission distribution within one element can be reduced.
Variations in the electron emission characteristics between the devices can be reduced.

For this reason, the image forming apparatus of the present invention using the electron source of the present invention can obtain a good image with less image unevenness.

[Brief description of the drawings]

FIG. 1 is a diagram showing one configuration example of a surface conduction electron-emitting device of the present invention.

FIG. 2 is a diagram showing another configuration example of the surface conduction electron-emitting device of the present invention.

FIG. 3 is a diagram for explaining an example of a method of manufacturing the surface conduction electron-emitting device of FIG.

FIG. 4 is an example of a voltage waveform used for a forming process.

FIG. 5 is a schematic diagram of a measurement evaluation system for measuring electron emission characteristics of a surface conduction electron-emitting device.

FIG. 6 is a diagram showing a typical example of the relationship between the emission current Ie and the device current If and the device voltage Vf of the surface conduction electron-emitting device of the present invention.

FIG. 7 is a schematic diagram of an electron source having a simple matrix arrangement.

FIG. 8 is a partially cutaway perspective view showing a schematic configuration of a display panel including an electron source in a simple matrix arrangement.

FIG. 9 is a diagram illustrating a configuration example of a fluorescent film used for a display panel.

FIG. 10 is a block diagram illustrating an example of a driving circuit of an image forming apparatus that performs image display according to an NTSC television signal.

FIG. 11 is a schematic view of a trapezoidal arrangement of electron sources.

FIG. 12 is a partially cutaway perspective view showing a schematic configuration of a display panel provided with a trapezoidal arrangement of electron sources.

FIG. 13 is a plan view showing a shape of an electron emission portion formed of a crack formed by forming.

FIG. 14 is a cross-sectional view showing an electron emission portion formed of a crack formed by forming.

FIG. 15 is a cross-sectional view for explaining a processing step using a microneedle according to the present invention.

FIG. 16 is a plan view of a surface conduction electron-emitting device that has undergone a processing step using a microneedle according to the present invention.

FIG. 17 is a partial plan view of an electron source having a simple matrix arrangement shown in Embodiment 2.

18 is a partial sectional view of the electron source shown in FIG.

FIG. 19 is a view for explaining a manufacturing process of the electron source in FIG. 17;

20 is a partial plan view of a mask used in the manufacturing process of the electron source in FIG.

FIG. 21 is a block diagram of an image forming apparatus according to a third embodiment.

FIG. 22 is a diagram for explaining the shape correction of a crack portion of an electron emitting portion according to the present invention.

[Explanation of symbols]

DESCRIPTION OF SYMBOLS 1 Substrate 2 Electron emission part 3 Conductive thin film 4, 5 Element electrode 50 Ammeter for measuring element current If flowing through conductive thin film 3 51 Power supply for applying element voltage Vf to electron emission element 52 Electron emission part An ammeter 53 for measuring an emission current Ie emitted from the second electrode 53; a high-voltage power supply for applying a voltage to the anode electrode 54; an anode electrode 55 for capturing electrons emitted from the electron emission section 2; 56 Exhaust pump 102 X-directional wiring 103 Y-directional wiring 104 Surface conduction electron-emitting device 105 Connection 111 Rear plate 112 Support frame 113 Glass substrate 114 Fluorescent film 115 Metal back 116 Face plate Hv High voltage terminal 118 Envelope 121 Black conductive material 122 Phosphor 201 Display panel 202 Scanning circuit 203 Control circuit 204 Shift Register 205 Line memory 206 Synchronous signal separation circuit 207 Modulation signal generator Va DC voltage source Vx DC voltage source 301 Display panel 302 Grid electrode 303 Opening for passing electrons 304 Common wiring for wiring electron-emitting devices 104 Interlayer insulating layer 402 contact hole 403 Cr film 501 probe 1001 drive circuit of display panel 201 1002 display controller 1003 multiplexer 1004 decoder 1005 input / output interface circuit 1006 CPU 1007 image generation circuit 1008, 1009, 1010 image memory interface circuit 1011 image input interface circuit 1012 1013 TV signal receiving circuit 1014 Input unit

────────────────────────────────────────────────── ─── Continued on the front page (58) Field surveyed (Int. Cl. ⁶ , DB name) H01J 1/30, 9/02, 9/50 JICST file (JOIS)

Claims (13)

(57) [Claims] 1. A method of manufacturing a surface conduction electron-emitting device in which an electron-emitting portion is provided on a conductive thin film provided between a pair of device electrodes provided on a substrate, wherein the electron-emitting portion is provided on the conductive thin film. After that, the electron emission section
A method of manufacturing an electron-emitting device, comprising: 2. A scanning tunnel microscope as said microneedle.
The method for manufacturing an electron-emitting device according to claim 1, wherein the probe is used . 3. An electron-emitting device obtained by the method according to claim 1. 4. A method for manufacturing an electron source comprising a plurality of surface conduction electron-emitting devices each having an electron-emitting portion provided on a conductive thin film communicating between a pair of device electrodes on a substrate, wherein the plurality of surface conduction electron-emitting devices are provided. At least one of the emitting elements
One to about, after providing an electron emitting portion in the conductive film,
A method of manufacturing an electron source, comprising a step of processing the electron emitting portion with a fine needle. 5. A scanning tunneling microscope as said microneedle.
The method for manufacturing an electron source according to claim 4, wherein the probe is used . 6. The electron source according to claim 1, wherein the electron source has at least one element row in which a plurality of electron-emitting devices are arranged, and wirings for driving each electron-emitting element are arranged in a matrix. Item 6. The method for manufacturing an electron source according to item 4 or 5. 7. The electron source has at least one element row in which a plurality of electron-emitting devices are arranged, and wirings for driving each electron-emitting element are arranged in a ladder shape. A method for manufacturing an electron source according to claim 4. 8. An electron source obtained by the method according to claim 4. 9. An electron source having a plurality of surface conduction electron-emitting devices each having an electron-emitting portion provided on a conductive thin film communicating between a pair of device electrodes on a substrate, and an electron beam emitted from the electron source. In a method of manufacturing an image forming apparatus having an image forming member that forms an image by irradiation, at least one of the plurality of surface conduction electron-emitting devices is used.
One to about, after providing an electron emitting portion in the conductive film,
A method for manufacturing an image forming apparatus, comprising a step of processing the electron emitting portion with a fine needle. 10. A scanning tunneling microscope as said microneedle.
The method according to claim 9, wherein a probe of a mirror is used . 11. The electron source has at least one element row in which a plurality of electron-emitting devices are arranged, and wirings for driving each electron-emitting element are arranged in a matrix. Item 11. The method for manufacturing an image forming apparatus according to Item 9 or 10. 12. The electron source has at least one element row in which a plurality of electron-emitting devices are arranged, and wiring for driving each electron-emitting element is arranged in a ladder configuration. A method for manufacturing an image forming apparatus according to claim 9. 13. An image forming apparatus obtained by the manufacturing method according to claim 9.