JP2981502B2 - Electron beam generator, image forming apparatus and optical signal donating apparatus using the same - Google Patents

Description

Description: BACKGROUND OF THE INVENTION 1. Field of the Invention The present invention relates to an electron beam generator that emits an electron beam in response to an information signal, and an image forming apparatus using the electron beam generator. Further, the present invention relates to an optical signal providing device which emits light according to an information signal by using the electron beam generating device.

[Prior Art] Conventionally, a thin image forming apparatus in which a plurality of electron-emitting devices developed in a plane and phosphor targets each receiving irradiation of an electron beam from the electron-emitting device are opposed to each other. Exists.

These electron beam display devices basically have the following configuration.

FIG. 1 shows an outline of a conventional display device. In this figure, 1 is a substrate, 2 is a support, 3 is a wiring electrode,
Reference numeral 4 denotes an electron emission portion, 5 denotes an electron passage hole, 6 denotes a modulation electrode, 7 denotes a glass plate, 8 denotes a transparent electrode, and 9 denotes an image forming member, which emits light when an electron such as a phosphor or a resist material collides.
It is made of a member that changes color, charges, and changes its quality. Reference numeral 10 denotes a face plate, and reference numeral 11 denotes a luminescent spot of the phosphor.

Here, the electron emitting portion 4 is formed by a thin film technique and has a hollow structure that does not come into contact with the glass substrate 1. The wiring electrode 3 may be formed using the same material as that of the electron-emitting member, or may be formed using another material. Generally, a material having a high melting point and a small electric resistance is used. The support 2 is formed of an insulator material or a conductor material.

In these electron beam display devices, a voltage is applied to the wiring electrode 3, electrons are emitted from an electron emitting portion having a hollow structure, and a voltage is applied to a modulation electrode 6, which modulates these electron flows in accordance with an information signal. Is taken out, and the taken out electrons are accelerated to collide with the phosphor 9. Further, an XY matrix is formed by the wiring electrode 3 and the modulation electrode 6, and an image is displayed on the phosphor 9 as an image forming member.

Another example of the conventional electron beam display device is the second example.
Shown in the figure.

In the conventional electron beam display shown in FIG. 2, the modulation electrode is arranged on the side opposite to the electron emission direction of the linear cathode (electron emission element).

[Problems to be Solved by the Invention] However, the above-mentioned conventional electron beam display includes:
There were the following problems.

. As shown in FIG. 1, the modulation electrode 6 is disposed above the electron-emitting device (comprising the support 2, the wiring electrode 3, and the electron-emitting portion 4) in the electron emission direction. It is difficult to position the electron emitting element 5 and the electron emitting part 4 of the electron emitting element, and it is difficult to produce a large-screen, high-definition image display element.

. As shown in FIGS. 1 and 2, since the modulation electrode 6 and the electron-emitting portion of the electron-emitting device are arranged oppositely with a space between them, the modulation electrode 6 and the electron-emitting portion of the electron-emitting device. It is difficult to make the distance to the portion 4 uniform between all the modulation electrodes 6 and the electron emission portions 4, and it is difficult to manufacture a large-screen, high-definition image display device.

. When an attempt is made to produce a large-screen, high-definition image display device, the luminance unevenness of the displayed image becomes remarkable.

That is, an object of the present invention is to solve the above-mentioned problems in the conventional example, to facilitate the alignment between the modulation electrode and the electron-emitting portion, and to provide an electron beam generating apparatus and an image forming apparatus whose production is simple. An apparatus, and further an optical signal providing apparatus.

It is a further object of the present invention to provide an electron beam generator, an image forming apparatus, and an optical signal donating apparatus which can display an image without uneven brightness.

[Means and Actions for Solving the Problems] The configuration of the present invention achieved to achieve the above object is as follows.

That is, a first aspect of the present invention is that an electron-emitting portion to which a voltage is applied between a low-potential electrode and a high-potential electrode disposed side by side along a substrate surface on the substrate via these electrodes. An electron-emitting device having an electron-emitting device having a modulation electrode that modulates an electron beam emitted from the electron-emitting device in accordance with an information signal, and a modulation electrode that is provided electrically independently of the electron-emitting device. The electron-emitting device and the modulation electrode,
The modulation electrode is disposed on the same surface of the substrate, and the modulation electrode is disposed only on the high-potential-side electrode side of the electron-emitting device, and the low-potential-side electrode is a lower electrode than the high-potential-side electrode. The electron beam generator is characterized in that the electrode width in the direction in which are arranged is large.

The first electron beam generator of the present invention further has a feature that the thickness of the low potential side electrode is larger than the thickness of the high potential side electrode, and the thickness of the modulation electrode is the high The thickness of the potential-side electrode is greater than the thickness of the potential-side electrode; the electron-emitting device is a surface-conduction electron-emitting device; a plurality of linear electron-emitting devices to which a plurality of the electron-emitting devices are connected; It also includes that the plurality constitutes an XY matrix, and that voltage applying means for applying a voltage to the electron-emitting device and the modulation electrode are separate and independent.

According to a second aspect of the present invention, at least an image forming member is provided on the electron emission side of the first electron beam generator of the present invention, the image forming member configured to form an image by collision of electrons. In the device.

In a third aspect of the present invention, at least a luminous body that emits light by collision of electrons is provided on the electron emission side of the first electron beam generator of the present invention, and light from the luminous body is used as a signal. An optical signal providing apparatus characterized in that the optical signal providing apparatus is configured to obtain the optical signal.

 Hereinafter, the present invention will be described.

FIG. 5 is a diagram showing one embodiment of the present invention. 31 is a glass substrate, 40 is a modulation electrode, 33 is an insulator film, 34 (34a, 34
b) is a device wiring electrode, 35 is a device electrode, and 36 is an electron emission portion. The electron-emitting device in FIG. 5 is a surface conduction type electron-emitting device described later, which is formed by the device electrode 35 and the electron-emitting portion 36, but the present invention is not limited to this electron-emitting device. FIG. 6 is a sectional view of FIG. 5E-E.

The first main feature of the present invention resides in a configuration in which an electron-emitting device and a modulation electrode are arranged on the same surface of a substrate 31.

The electron-emitting device according to the present invention has an electron-emitting portion to which a voltage is applied via electrodes between electrodes arranged side by side along the substrate surface, and has conventionally been used as an electron source of an image forming apparatus. Any of the hot cathode and the cold cathode may be used as long as the hot cathode is used. However, in the case of the hot cathode, the electron emission efficiency is reduced due to heat diffusion to the insulator.

Therefore, it is desirable that the electron-emitting device be a cold cathode.
Further, among the cold cathodes, the use of an electron-emitting device called a surface conduction electron-emitting device in the electron beam generator, the image forming device, and the optical signal providing device of the present invention is as follows: 1) High electron emission efficiency 2) It is easy to manufacture because of its simple structure. 3) A large number of devices can be arrayed on the same substrate. 4) Fast response speed. 5) Excellent brightness contrast. It is particularly preferable because it has the advantage of

Here, the surface conduction electron-emitting device is, for example,
Cold cathode device [Radio Eng. Electron Phys. No. 10 published by Mielinson et al.
Vol., Pp. 1290-1296, 1965], in which a voltage is applied between electrodes (element electrodes) sandwiching a small-area thin film (electron-emitting portion) provided on a substrate surface to form a film. An element that emits electrons when a current flows in parallel to the surface. still,
Such a device is a SnO ₂ device developed by Elinson et al.
(Sb) In addition to those using thin films, those using Au thin films [G. Ditmer: "Sin Solid Films" (G.
Dittmer: “Thin Solid Films”), 9, 317, (1972
Year)], using ITO thin film [M. Hartwell and C.G.Fonstad: "I.E.E.E.Trans.E.D.Conf" (M.Hart
well and CGFonstad: “IEEE Trans.ED Conf.”) 5
19, (1975)], and those using a carbon thin film [Hisashi Araki et al .: "Vacuum", Vol. 26, No. 1, p. 22, (1983)] and the like have been reported.

The surface conduction electron-emitting device that can be used in the present invention may be one in which the electron-emitting portion is formed by dispersing metal fine particles as described later in addition to the above.

Further, in the present invention, the modulation electrode is an electrode for controlling ON / OFF of an electron beam emitted from the electron-emitting device by applying a voltage according to an information signal, and any conductive material can be used. It may be formed from a material.

Further, in the present invention, the substrate is a base for holding both the electron-emitting device and the modulation electrode, and may be formed of any material as long as it is an insulating material.

A second main feature of the present invention resides in a configuration in which the modulation electrode is arranged only on the high potential side electrode side of the electron-emitting device.

FIG. 3 is a reference diagram in the case where modulation electrodes are arranged on both device electrodes sides of the electron-emitting device, and FIG. 4 is a DD diagram of FIG.
It is sectional drawing. According to the configuration of the present invention, the pixel pitch in the X direction in FIG. 3 can be reduced as compared with the case where the modulating electrodes are arranged on both element electrodes of the electron-emitting device in this manner. effective.

On the other hand, when the modulation electrode is arranged only on the high potential side electrode side of the electron-emitting device, the absolute value of the voltage applied to the modulation electrode to cut off the electron beam emitted from the electron-emitting portion generally becomes large. For this reason, in the present invention, when the low potential side electrode of the electron-emitting device is referred to as the electrode width in the direction in which both electrodes are arranged (hereinafter referred to as “device electrode width” or “width of the device electrode”), There is.) Is big.
This can suppress an increase in the cutoff voltage to be applied to the modulation electrode. This will be described with reference to FIG.

FIG. 8 shows that the modulation electrodes are present on both sides of the electron-emitting portion. In FIG. 4, the device electrode width W = 20 μm and the device electrode distance G =
2 μm, element electrode-modulation electrode distance S = 10 μm, element-phosphor surface distance = 4 mm (not shown), phosphor surface voltage (acceleration voltage) = 2 kV (not shown), high-potential element electrode voltage = 14 V FIG. 7 shows equipotential lines near the device electrode and an example of electron flight when the low-potential-side device electrode voltage = 0 V. FIG.

As shown in FIG. 8, electrons emitted from the electron-emitting device are cut off when the electron-emitting portion is surrounded by equipotential lines of 0 [V]. Thus, if the width of the low-potential-side device electrode to which 0 [V] is applied is increased, the cutoff voltage (absolute value) can be increased even if there is no modulation electrode on the low-potential-side device electrode side. It can be seen that it can be suppressed.

Further, when the modulation electrode 40 is arranged only on one side of the electron emission section 36, it is better to arrange the modulation electrode 40 on the high potential side element electrode 35a instead of the low potential side element electrode 35b. Value) can be understood.

EXAMPLES Hereinafter, the present invention will be described in detail with reference to examples.

Embodiment 1 In this embodiment, an embodiment of an electron beam generator and an image display device using the same will be described with reference to FIGS. 5 and 6. FIG. FIG. 5 is a schematic configuration diagram showing an electron source and a modulation electrode unit in the electron beam generator of the present invention. FIG. 6 shows the fifth
It is sectional drawing of EE in a figure. 31 is an insulating substrate, 35
Is the device electrode of the surface conduction electron-emitting device (35a is the high potential side,
35b is the low potential side), 36 is the electron emission section, 40 is the modulation electrode, 34
(34-a, 34-b) are element wiring electrodes, 33 is an insulator film, and 41 is a modulation wiring electrode.

The linear electron-emitting device (linear electron source) has a device wiring electrode 34-.
It is formed by arranging a plurality of electron emitting portions 36 between a and 34-b. The modulation electrode 40 is arranged on the high-potential-side element electrode 35a side, and is connected to the modulation wiring electrode 41 via a contact hole of the insulator film 33 as shown in FIG. Hereinafter, this is referred to as a line modulation electrode. By providing a plurality of such line electron sources and the line modulation electrodes 41 in parallel, a line electron source group and a line modulation electrode group are formed.

In this embodiment, an image display device is manufactured by providing the face plate 10 with the image forming member 9 as described in the above-mentioned conventional example above the substrate on which the electron source and the modulation electrode are provided.

In this embodiment, the surface conduction electron-emitting device and the modulation electrode 40 are provided on the same surface of the substrate 31. High potential side device electrode 35
The width (Wa) of a is 20 μm, and the width (Wb) of the low-potential-side device electrode 35b is
It was 50 μm. An element electrode 35 which is an electron emitting portion 36
(G) was 2 μm.

Next, regarding the formation of the electron emitting portion 36, a mixed fine particle film of palladium fine particles and palladium oxide fine particles was formed by dispersing and coating organic palladium of CCP-4230 manufactured by Okuno Pharmaceutical Co., Ltd. Was provided between the device electrodes to form an electron-emitting portion.

Next, the interval (S) between the element electrode 35 and the modulation electrode 40 is 10 μm.
And In addition, the length (l) of the electron emitting portion 36 shown in FIG.
Is 150 μm, which is the length of the device electrode 35 facing each other. The width (L) of the modulation electrode 40 was 200 μm.

Next, the constituent materials of the present invention will be described. As the substrate 31, a glass material was used. The element electrode 35 and the modulation electrode 40 were formed of nickel having a thickness of 1000 mm. The insulator film 33 is made of SiO ₂
Formed.

Next, a method for manufacturing the image display device of this embodiment will be described with reference to FIG.

. The glass substrate 31 is sufficiently washed, and the device electrode 35 and the modulation electrode 40 are formed by a commonly used evaporation technique and photolithography technique. The electron-emitting device, the line electron source, and the line modulation electrode of this example were all formed at a 1.0 mm pitch.

Next, an element wiring electrode 34 (not shown) for simultaneously driving a plurality of electron-emitting elements is formed. In the present embodiment, a material mainly composed of copper was formed to a thickness of 1.5 μm.

. Next, an insulator film 33 is provided at an end of the modulation electrode 40. At this time, the insulator film 33 is provided in a direction perpendicular to the element wiring electrode 34, and it is necessary to provide electrical insulation between the modulation wiring electrode 41 provided on the insulator film and the element wiring electrode 34. Next, the modulation electrode 40
A contact hole 38 is formed in the insulator film 33 in order to obtain an electrical connection between the wiring and the modulation wiring electrode 41.

. Next, the modulation wiring electrode 41 is formed on the insulator film 33.
At this time, the connection of the modulation electrode is made via the contact hole 38.

. Next, a fine particle film is formed between the device electrodes, and the electron emitting portion 36 is formed.
To form Such a fine particle film was formed by spin-coating organic palladium fine particles, followed by baking at about 300 ° C. for 30 minutes.

. The face plate 10 having the phosphor 9 was provided at a distance of 5 mm from the glass substrate 31 having the electron source and the modulation electrode 40 formed by the process described above, and an image display device was manufactured.

 Next, a driving method of the present embodiment will be described.

The voltage of the phosphor surface is set to 0.8 kV to 2.0 kV. In FIG. 5, a voltage pulse (14 V in this embodiment) is applied to a pair of element wiring electrodes 34-a and 34-b, and electrons are emitted from a plurality of linearly arranged electron-emitting devices. The emitted electrons control ON / OFF of the electron beam by applying a voltage to the line modulation electrode group corresponding to the information signal. The electrons emitted from the electron emitting portion 36 accelerate and collide with the phosphor 9. The phosphor 9 displays one line according to the information signal. Next, the adjacent wiring electrodes 34-a and 34-b (in this embodiment, 14 V
2) is applied to display the above-mentioned one line. By sequentially performing this, an image of one screen was formed. That is, an image was displayed by forming an XY matrix with the scanning electrodes and the modulation electrodes using the wiring electrode group as the scanning electrodes.

Note that the width Wb of the low-potential-side element electrode 35b is
FIG. 9 (FIG. 10 is a cross-sectional view of FIG.
The F section is shown. In the example of ()), the cut-off voltage to be applied to the modulation electrode 40 was about −60 V, whereas the cut-off voltage in this embodiment was about −45 V, and the cut-off voltage (absolute value) was It was confirmed that there was an effect of reducing.

Embodiment 2 A second embodiment of the present invention will be described with reference to FIG. 11 and FIG. In this embodiment, the thickness of the low-potential-side element electrode 35b and the modulation electrode 40 in the first embodiment is 5 μm. As a result, the cutoff voltage became about -38 V, and it was confirmed that the cutoff voltage (absolute value) could be further reduced.

In the present embodiment, the low potential side device electrode 35b and the modulation electrode 40
Although both electrodes have the same thickness, they may generally have different thicknesses, and the same effect can be obtained even if only one electrode is thickened.

Embodiment 3 Next, an optical signal providing device according to a third embodiment of the present invention will be described. Here, the optical signal providing device is a device that converts an electric signal into an optical signal, and specifically refers to a device such as an LED (Light Emitting Diode) array, a liquid crystal shutter, or the like.

FIG. 13 is a schematic illustration of an LED array. An LED 52 is one-dimensionally arranged on a substrate 51, and the LED is connected to an electrode 53 on the substrate 51, and by applying a voltage to the electrode 53
Light can be emitted from the LED. That is, by inputting an electric signal to the electrode 53, it can be output as a light signal from the LED array.

FIG. 14 is a diagram of an embodiment in which the electron beam generator of the present invention is a light signal providing device, and FIG. 15 is a schematic explanatory diagram of the electron beam generator. As can be seen from FIG. 15, this embodiment has the same structure as the one-line electron beam generator of the image display device of the first embodiment, and the device structure and the manufacturing method are almost the same as those of the first embodiment. Description is omitted.

Next, a method of driving the optical signal providing apparatus of the present embodiment will be described. A voltage is applied to the device wiring electrode 34, and the
An electron beam is emitted from 36. A predetermined voltage is applied to the phosphor in advance, and an electric signal is input to the modulation electrode 32 in accordance with the modulation signal to control the ON / OFF of the electron beam. The controlled electron beam strikes the phosphor and is output as an optical signal.

By using a surface conduction electron-emitting device as the electron-emitting device of the present embodiment, not only high brightness and high definition
An epoch-making optical signal providing device with extremely high switching speed can be manufactured.

[Effects of the Invention] As described above, according to the present invention, the alignment between the electron-emitting device and the modulation electrode is facilitated, and the following effects are practically obtained.

(1) A high-luminance image without display unevenness is obtained.

(2) Large-capacity display is possible.

(3) Since thin-film technology can be used as a manufacturing technology, high-definition display is possible.

(4) A low-cost image forming apparatus can be manufactured.

(5) An increase in the absolute value of the voltage to be applied to the modulation electrode can be suppressed.

(6) If the thickness of the low potential side device electrode and / or the modulation electrode is further increased, the effect of suppressing (the absolute value of) the cutoff voltage increases.

[Brief description of the drawings]

1 and 2 are configuration diagrams of a conventional image display device. FIG. 3 is an example of an image display device in which modulation electrodes are provided on both sides of an electron emission section. FIG. 4 is a sectional view taken along the line DD in FIG. FIG. 5 is a perspective view showing a first embodiment of the present invention. FIG. 6 is a cross-sectional view taken along the line EE of FIG. FIG. 7 is a process chart showing a method for manufacturing the image display device in the first embodiment. FIG. 8 is a sectional view for explaining the effect of the present invention. FIG. 9 is an example of an image display device when the electrode widths sandwiching the electron-emitting portion are made equal. FIG. 10 is a sectional view taken along the line FF in FIG. FIG. 11 is a perspective view showing a second embodiment of the present invention. FIG. 12 is a cross-sectional view taken along the line JJ of FIG. FIG. 13 is a perspective view of a conventional LED array as an optical signal providing apparatus. FIG. 14 is a perspective configuration diagram of an optical signal providing apparatus according to the present invention. FIG. 15 is a detailed explanatory view of the electron beam generator having the configuration shown in FIG. 1, 31 ... insulating layer substrate (glass substrate), 2 ... support 3 ... wiring electrode, 4, 36 ... electron emission part 5, ... electron passage hole, 6, 32, 40 ... modulation electrode 7 ... ... Glass substrate, 8 ... Transparent electrode 9 ... Image forming member (phosphor), 10 ... Face plate 11 ... Bright spot of phosphor, 34,34-a, 34-b ... Device wiring electrode 35 ... … Device electrode, 33… insulator film 35a… high potential side device electrode 35b… low potential side device electrode 38… contact hole 41… modulation wiring electrode 51… substrate, 52… LED 53… electrode , 54 …… light

──────────────────────────────────────────────────続 き Continuing on the front page (72) Hidetoshi Suzuki, 3-30-2 Shimomaruko, Ota-ku, Tokyo Inside Canon Inc. (72) Tetsuya Kaneko 3-30-2, Shimomaruko, Ota-ku, Tokyo Canon (56) References JP-A-57-5249 (JP, A) (58) Fields investigated (Int. Cl. ⁶ , DB name) H01J 1 / 30,29 / 04 H01J 31/12-31 / 15 H01J 3 / 08,29 / 62

Claims (8)

(57) [Claims] An electron emission portion having an electron emission portion on a substrate, between a low potential side electrode and a high potential side electrode which are juxtaposed along a substrate surface, and to which a voltage is applied via these electrodes. In an electron beam generating apparatus having a device and a modulation electrode that modulates an electron beam emitted from the electron-emitting device according to an information signal and is provided independently of the electron-emitting device,
The electron-emitting device and the modulation electrode are disposed on the same surface of the substrate, and the modulation electrode is disposed only on the high-potential-side electrode of the electron-emitting device, and the low-potential side An electron beam generator, wherein the electrode has a larger electrode width in the direction in which both electrodes are arranged than the high potential side electrode. 2. The electron beam generator according to claim 1, wherein said electron-emitting device is a surface conduction electron-emitting device. 3. The apparatus according to claim 1, wherein the thickness of the low-potential electrode is greater than the thickness of the high-potential electrode.
An electron beam generator according to claim 1. 4. The electron beam generator according to claim 1, wherein a thickness of said modulation electrode is larger than a thickness of said high potential side electrode. 5. A plurality of linear electron-emitting devices to which a plurality of said electron-emitting devices are connected, and a plurality of wirings of said modulation electrode.
The electron beam generator according to any one of claims 1 to 4, wherein the electron beam generator comprises an XY matrix. 6. An electron beam generator according to claim 1, wherein voltage applying means for applying a voltage to said electron-emitting device and said modulating electrode are independent of each other. 7. An image forming apparatus according to claim 1, wherein at least an image forming member for forming an image by collision of electrons is provided on the electron emitting side of the electron beam generating apparatus according to claim 1. . 8. A light-emitting body which emits light by collision of electrons is provided at least on the electron-emitting side of the electron beam generator according to claim 1, and light from the light-emitting body can be used as a signal. An optical signal providing apparatus having a configuration.