JPH08250049A - Electron emitting element, electron source using this electron emitting element, image forming device and manufacture thereof - Google Patents

Abstract

PURPOSE: To prevent an emitted electron from again dropping to an electrode so as to attain increase of an emitter current, by providing a resistor film in an upper of lower part of a conductive film provided between the electrodes to have an electron emitting part, and lowering the potential to specify potential distribution. CONSTITUTION: A pair of element electrodes 4, 5 are arranged on an insulating substrate 1, to provide therebetween a conductive film 3, consisting of a metal or metal oxide, connected. This conductive film 3 is previously treated to form an electron emitting part 2, further to apply activation treating and stabilization treating. By applying voltage between the electrodes 4, 5 with a current flowing in the conductive film 3, an electron is emitted from the vicinity of a crack 6 in the electron emitting part 2. In the electron emitting element, a resistor film 7 of specifying potential distribution in the vicinity of the electron emitting part 2 by a potential drop is provided in an upper or lower part of the conductive film 3. In this way, the emitted electron is prevented from being again attracted to the element electrodes 4, 5 in a high potential side.

Description

Detailed Description of the Invention

[0001]

BACKGROUND OF THE INVENTION 1. Field of the Invention The present invention relates to an electron-emitting device, an electron source using the same, an image forming apparatus such as a display device and an exposure device,
Furthermore, the present invention relates to a method for manufacturing the electron-emitting device, the electron source, and the image forming apparatus.

[0002]

2. Description of the Related Art Conventionally, two types of electron-emitting devices are known, that is, a thermoelectron source and a cold cathode electron source. Cold cathode electron source is field emission type (FE type), metal / insulating layer /
There are metal type (MIM type) and surface conduction type electron-emitting devices.

The surface conduction electron-emitting device, which is one of the above-mentioned electron-emitting devices, has a phenomenon that electron emission occurs when a current is passed through a conductive thin film formed on an insulating substrate in parallel with the film surface. To use.

As a typical configuration example of the surface conduction electron-emitting device, a conductive thin film such as a metal oxide which connects a pair of device electrodes provided on an insulative substrate is referred to as forming in advance. The thing which formed the electron emission part by the electricity supply process is mentioned. Forming is performed by applying a DC voltage or a very slow rising voltage across the conductive thin film, for example, 1
It is usually carried out by applying and energizing a rising voltage of about V / 1 minute to locally destroy, deform or alter the conductive thin film to change the structure and form an electron emitting portion in an electrically high resistance state. It is a process to do. The electron emission is performed from the vicinity of the crack generated in the electron emitting portion by applying a voltage to the conductive thin film in which the electron emitting portion is formed and flowing a current.

Since the surface conduction electron-emitting device has a simple structure and is easy to manufacture, it has an advantage that a large number of arrays can be formed over a large area. Therefore, various applications for utilizing this feature are being researched. For example, it can be used for an image forming apparatus such as a display device.

Conventionally, as an example in which a large number of surface conduction electron-emitting devices are arranged and formed, surface conduction electron-emitting devices are arranged in parallel, and both ends (both device electrodes) of individual surface conduction electron-emitting devices are wired. An electron source in which a large number of rows connected by (also called common wiring) are arranged (also called a ladder arrangement) is disclosed (Japanese Patent Laid-Open Nos. 1-33132 and 1-2837).
No. 49, No. 2-257552). Further, particularly in the case of a display device, a large number of surface conduction electron-emitting devices can be used as a self-luminous display device that can be a flat panel display device similar to a display device using liquid crystal and does not require a backlight. A display device has been proposed in which an arranged electron source is combined with a phosphor that emits visible light when irradiated with an electron beam from the electron source (US Pat. No. 5,066,506).
883).

[0007]

By the way, the behavior of the surface conduction electron-emitting device used in the above-mentioned electron source, image forming apparatus, etc. in a vacuum is hardly known, and stable and controlled electron emission characteristics, And the emission current I emitted in vacuum
Improvement of e has been desired. However, in the conventional surface conduction electron-emitting device, as is clear from its structure, electrons emitted once in a vacuum have a high rate of being re-sucked to the device electrode on the high potential side in the immediate vicinity of the injection position. , Which is one of the factors that lower the emission current Ie.

It is an object of the present invention to obtain an electron-emitting device capable of increasing the emission current Ie, an electron source using the same, and an image forming apparatus.

[0009]

Means and Actions for Solving the Problems Claims 1 to 10
The present invention relates to an electron-emitting device, wherein in an electron-emitting device having a conductive film having an electron-emitting portion between electrodes, a potential distribution in the vicinity of the electron-emitting portion is lowered above or below the conductive film. It is characterized in that it has a resistor film defined by.

The inventions according to claims 11 to 15 relate to a method for manufacturing an electron-emitting device, wherein the device electrodes are formed on the substrate and a conductive film for connecting the device electrodes is formed, and the conductive film is formed. It is characterized in that it has a forming step of forming an electron emitting portion in the above, and a step of forming a resistor film on or below the conductive film.

[0016] The inventions of claims 16 to 20 are inventions relating to a method of manufacturing an electron source having a plurality of the electron-emitting devices.
Forming a plurality of pairs of device electrodes on the substrate, forming a conductive film that connects the device electrodes of each pair, forming process of forming an electron emission portion in each conductive film, and each conductive film And a step of forming a resistor film on or under the substrate.

The inventions of claims 21 to 25 are inventions relating to an electron source obtained by the above manufacturing method.

Further, the inventions of claims 26 to 29 are inventions relating to an image forming apparatus using the electron source and a manufacturing method thereof.

As described above, the present invention provides a novel electron-emitting device, a novel electron source having a plurality of the electron-emitting devices,
The present invention relates to a novel image forming apparatus and a manufacturing method thereof, and the configuration and operation of each invention will be further described below.

The electron-emitting device of the present invention includes a flat type and a vertical type. First, the basic configuration of the flat electron-emitting device will be described.

FIG. 1 is a diagram showing the basic structure of a flat surface conduction electron-emitting device.

In FIG. 1, 1 is a substrate, 3 is a conductive film, and 4
And 5 are element electrodes, which are cracks 6 through the forming process.
Are formed. Here, some points in the crack 6 become the electron emitting portion 2. After that, the resistor 7 is laminated,
The resistor 7 covers the electron emitting portion 2. By the way, in actual use, considering the electric field received by the emitted electrons, a direction parallel to the substrate 1 and perpendicular to the crack 6 (hereinafter referred to as “lateral electric field”).
Say. ), And the substrate 1 has a vertical direction (hereinafter referred to as “longitudinal electric field”). The behavior of the emitted electrons strongly depends on the intensity ratio of the longitudinal electric field and the transverse electric field, and the behavior of the transverse electric field in the vicinity of the electron emission point largely changes.

FIG. 2A shows the element structure in the crack 6 in the aa 'section of FIG. 1, and FIG. 2B shows the potential distribution between points A and A'of the same section. The same reference numerals as those in FIG. 1 indicate the same members. As is clear from FIG.
Due to the potential drop caused by the current flowing through the resistor 7,
The lateral electric field near the electron emission point becomes substantially uniform.

On the other hand, the element structure in the crack 6 in the aa 'section of FIG. 1 in the case where the resistor 7 is not provided is shown in FIG.
Fig. 3 shows the potential distribution between points A and A'of the same section.
It shows in (b). The same reference numerals as those in FIG. 1 indicate the same members. As is apparent from FIG. 3, the lateral electric field is large at both ends of the crack 6. Therefore, the emitted electrons are
In the hatched area in (b), the lateral acceleration is greatly accelerated, and the element electrode falls to the high potential side element electrode. That is, according to the present invention, it is possible to significantly increase the proportion of the electrons that have once been emitted, which can reach the anode electrode arranged above the element without dropping to the element electrode.

The substrate 1 is, for example, quartz glass or Na.
Examples thereof include glass having a reduced content of impurities such as blue glass, soda lime glass, a laminated body obtained by laminating SiO ₂ on soda lime glass by a sputtering method, and ceramics such as alumina.

As the material of the device electrodes 4 and 5 facing each other,
Common conductor materials are used, such as Ni, Cr, Au,
Metals or alloys such as Mo, W, Pt, Ti, Al, Cu, Pd and Pd, Ag, Au, RuO ₂ , Pd-Ag
A printed conductor composed of a metal or a metal oxide and glass, a transparent conductor such as In ₂ O ₃ —SnO ₂ and a semiconductor conductor material such as polysilicon are appropriately selected.

The element electrode spacing L, the element electrode length W, the shape of the conductive film 3 and the like are designed according to the applied form.

The device electrode spacing L is preferably several hundred angstroms to several hundreds of micrometers, and more preferably, the photolithography technique that is the basis of the device electrode manufacturing method, that is, the performance of the exposure device and the etching method, etc. Also, it is several micrometers to several tens of micrometers depending on the voltage applied between the device electrodes 4 and 5.

The device electrode length W is preferably several hundred angstroms to several tens of micrometers in consideration of the resistance value of the electrodes and electron emission characteristics, and the device electrode thickness d.
Is from a few hundred Angstroms to a few micrometers.

The surface conduction electron-emitting device shown in FIG. 1 has the device electrodes 4, 5 and the conductive film 3 laminated in this order on the substrate 1. The conductive film 3 and the device electrodes 4 and 5 may be laminated in this order.

The conductive film 3 is particularly preferably a fine particle film composed of fine particles in order to obtain good electron emission characteristics. The thickness of the conductive film 3 depends on the step coverage to the device electrodes 4 and 5 and the device. Resistance value between electrodes 4 and 5, electron emission portion 2
It is appropriately selected according to the particle diameter of the conductive fine particles, the forming conditions described later, and the like. The film thickness of the conductive film 3 is
It is preferably several angstroms to several thousand angstroms, particularly preferably 10 angstroms to 500 angstroms.
It is angstrom, and its resistance value is a sheet resistance value of 10 3 to 10 7 ohm / □.

As the material forming the conductive film 3, for example, Pd, Ru, Ag, Au, Ti, In, Cu, Cr,
Metals such as Fe, Zn, Sn, Ta, W, Pb, PdO,
Oxides such as SnO ₂ , In ₂ O ₃ , PbO and Sb ₂ O ₃ , HfB ₂ , ZrB ₂ , LaB ₆ , CeB ₆ , YB
₄ , boride such as GdB ₄ , TiC, ZrC, HfC, T
Carbides such as aC, SiC, WC, TiN, ZrN, H
Examples include nitrides such as fN, semiconductors such as Si and Ge, and carbon fine particles.

The fine particle film is a film in which a plurality of fine particles are aggregated, and its fine structure is 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 (island shape). Including). In the case of a fine particle film, the particle diameter of the fine particles is preferably several angstroms to several thousand angstroms, and particularly preferably 10 angstroms to 200 angstroms.

The electron emitting portion 2 is preferably several angstroms to several hundred angstroms, particularly preferably 10 angstroms.
It is composed of a large number of conductive fine particles having a particle diameter of angstrom to 500 angstrom, and depends on the film thickness of the conductive film 3 and the manufacturing method such as forming conditions described later, and is appropriately selected. The material forming the electron emitting portion 2 is the same as some or all of the elements of the conductive film 3. In addition, the electron emitting portion 2 including a crack and the conductive film 3 in the vicinity thereof
May have carbon and carbon compounds. Since the formation of the electron emission portion 2 depends on the film thickness, film quality, material of the conductive film 3 and the manufacturing method such as forming conditions described later, the position and shape thereof are specified to the position and shape as shown in FIG. Not something.

The resistance value of the resistor film 7 is equal to or less than the resistance value between the element electrodes when the resistor film is not provided (usually several hundreds of ohms to 1 megohm), preferably one half or less. , The lower limit is the current capacity of the current that drives the electron-emitting device,
And power consumption are set appropriately. The resistance value range is preferably several hundred ohms to tens of kilohms. This is because the surface current flows through the resistor film to define the potential distribution near the electron emission point.

The thickness of the resistor film 7 must be suppressed to the extent that electron emission is not hindered, and there is a correlation with the material, but it is preferably 10 angstroms to 1000 angstroms, more preferably several tens angstroms to 100 angstroms. is there. When the resistor film is formed below the conductive film, a material having a melting point higher than that of the conductive film or a packing density (packing) of the film is used.
It is necessary to use the one with high density.

Any material can be used as the material for forming the resistor film 7 as long as it realizes the above resistance value. Pd, A
Metals such as u and Ti, oxides such as PdO and SnO ₂ , Ti
Examples thereof include carbides such as C and SiC.

Next, the basic structure of the vertical electron-emitting device will be described.

FIG. 4 is a view showing the basic structure of a vertical type surface conduction electron-emitting device. In the figure, reference numeral 21 denotes a step forming member, and the same reference numerals as those in FIG. 1 denote the same members.

The substrate 1, the electron emitting portion 2, the conductive film 3, the device electrodes 4, 5 and the resistor film 7 are made of the same material as that of the above-mentioned flat surface conduction electron-emitting device. .

The step forming member 21 is formed by, for example, a vacuum vapor deposition method,
It is made of an insulating material such as SiO ₂ attached by a printing method, a sputtering method or the like. The film thickness of the step forming member 21 corresponds to the device electrode distance L (see FIG. 1) of the above-mentioned flat surface conduction electron-emitting device. It is set by the voltage applied between the first and second electrodes, but is preferably several hundred angstroms to several tens of micrometers, and particularly preferably several hundred angstroms to several micrometers.

Since the conductive film 3 is usually formed after the device electrodes 4 and 5 are formed, it is laminated on the device electrodes 4 and 5, but the device electrodes 4 and 5 are formed after the conductive film 3 is formed. make,
It is also possible to stack the device electrodes 4 and 5 on the conductive film 3. Further, as described in the description of the planar type surface conduction electron-emitting device, the formation of the electron-emitting portion 2 depends on the film thickness of the conductive film 3, the film quality, the material, the forming conditions described later, and the like. Therefore, its position and shape are not limited to the position and shape shown in FIG.

In the following description, of the above-mentioned planar type electron-emitting device and vertical type electron-emitting device, the planar type will be taken as an example. However, instead of the planar type electron-emitting device, the vertical type electron-emitting device will be described. It may be an electron-emitting device.

Various methods are conceivable as a method of manufacturing the surface conduction electron-emitting device of the present invention, one example of which will be described with reference to FIGS. In FIG. 5, the same symbols as those in FIG. 1 indicate the same members.

1) After the substrate 1 is thoroughly washed with a detergent, pure water and an organic solvent, an element electrode material is deposited by a vacuum evaporation method, a sputtering method or the like, and then an element is formed on the surface of the substrate 1 by a photolithography technique. The electrodes 4 and 5 are formed (FIG. 5A).

2) The element electrode 4 is formed by applying an organic metal solution on the substrate 1 on which the element electrodes 4 and 5 are provided and leaving it to stand.
And the device electrode 5 are connected to form an organometallic thin film.
The organometallic solution means Pd, Ru, Ag, A described above.
u, Ti, In, Cu, Cr, Fe, Zn, Sn, T
It is a solution of an organic compound containing a metal, which is a constituent material of the conductive film 3, such as a, W, and Pd as a main element. After that, the organic metal film is heated and baked to form the conductive film 3 patterned by lift-off, etching or the like (FIG. 5B).

In the present invention, the constituent material of the conductive film 3 is in a two-phase mixed state of an oxide and a metal, or a non-stoichiometric composition by controlling the heating temperature to a predetermined temperature during the above heating and firing. It is preferable to have a state of having an oxide having. This is because the resistance value can be adjusted over a wide range by re-oxidation or re-reduction.

Although the method of coating the organic metal solution has been described here, the method is not limited to this, and examples thereof include a vacuum vapor deposition method, a sputtering method, a chemical vapor deposition method, a dispersion coating method, a dipping method and a spinner method. It is also possible to form an organic metal film.

3) Subsequently, energization processing called forming is performed. When a pulsed or energizing process with a rising voltage is performed between the device electrodes 4 and 5 by a power source (not shown), a crack having a changed structure is formed at the site of the conductive film 3. The electrically conductive film 3 is locally destroyed, deformed or altered by this energization process, and the site where the structure is changed is the electron emission part 2 (FIG. 5C).

FIG. 6 shows an example of the voltage waveform of forming.

The voltage waveform is particularly preferably a pulse waveform,
There are a case where a voltage pulse whose pulse peak value is a constant voltage is continuously applied (FIG. 6A), and a case where a voltage pulse is applied while increasing the pulse peak value (FIG. 6B).

First, the case where the pulse peak value is a constant voltage will be described with reference to FIG.

In FIG. 6A, T1 and T2 are the pulse width and the pulse interval of the voltage waveform. For example, T1 is 1 microsecond to 10 milliseconds and T2 is 10 microseconds to 100.
Millisecond, the peak value (peak voltage at the time of forming) is appropriately selected according to the form of the electron-emitting device described above, and a suitable vacuum degree is set in a vacuum atmosphere of about 10 −5 torr to several seconds to several seconds. Apply enough. The applied voltage waveform is not limited to the illustrated triangular wave, and a desired waveform such as a rectangular wave can be used, and the peak value, pulse width, pulse interval, etc. are also limited to the above values. Instead, a desired value can be used in accordance with the resistance value of the electron-emitting device so that the electron-emitting portion can be formed well.

Next, the case of applying a voltage pulse while increasing the pulse crest value will be described with reference to FIG. 6 (b).

T1 and T2 in FIG. 6B are shown in FIG.
Similar to (a), the crest value (peak voltage during forming) is increased by, for example, about 0.1 V step,
Application is performed in an appropriate vacuum atmosphere similar to the description of FIG.

During the pulse interval T2, the element current is measured at a voltage that does not locally damage, deform, or alter the conductive film 3, for example, a voltage of about 0.1 V to obtain a resistance value. Forming is preferably terminated when the resistance is equal to or higher than ohms. The forming voltage at this time is called VF.

4) Further, for example, P by RF sputtering or the like.
An ultrathin metal film such as d is formed, and the resistor film 7 is formed by photolithography (FIG. 5D).

The steps from the forming step onward are performed in a measurement / evaluation system as shown in FIG. This measurement evaluation system will be described.

7, the same reference numerals as those in FIG. 1 indicate the same members. Further, 51 is a power supply for applying a device voltage Vf to the device, 50 is an ammeter for measuring a device current If flowing through the conductive film 3 between the device electrodes 4 and 5, and 54 is an electron emitting portion 2. An anode electrode for trapping the emission current Ie generated, 53 is a high-voltage power supply for applying a voltage to the anode electrode 54, 52 is an ammeter for measuring the emission current Ie emitted from the electron emission portion 2, 55 Is a vacuum device,
56 is an exhaust pump.

The electron-emitting device, the anode electrode 54 and the like are installed in a vacuum device 55, and this vacuum device 55 is equipped with necessary equipment such as a vacuum gauge (not shown) so that the electron-emitting device can be operated under a desired vacuum. It is possible to measure and evaluate.

The exhaust pump 56 is composed of a normal high vacuum system such as a turbo pump and a rotary pump, and an ultra high vacuum system such as an ion pump.
Further, the entire vacuum device 55 and the substrate 1 of the electron-emitting device are
It can be heated up to about 200 ° C by a heater. This measurement and evaluation system configures the display panel and its inside as the vacuum device 55 and its inside at the stage of assembling the display panel as will be described later, so that the measurement and evaluation in the forming step and the subsequent steps described later are performed. It is applied to processing.

5) In the case of the electron-emitting device of the present invention, it is preferable to further carry out an activation step.

The activation step is, for example, 10 −4 to 1
As in the case of the forming step, a process of repeating the application of pulses with a constant pulse peak value at a vacuum degree of about 0 −5 torr, that is, carbon and carbon from organic substances present in a vacuum. By depositing the compound on the electron emitting portion 2, the states of the device current If and the emission current Ie can be remarkably improved. It is effective to perform this activation process while measuring the device current If and the emission current Ie, for example, and to finish it when the emission current Ie is saturated, which is effective and preferable. The pulse peak value in the activation step is preferably the peak value of the drive voltage applied when driving the element.

The carbon and the carbon compound are graphite (both single crystal and polycrystalline) and amorphous carbon (amorphous carbon and a mixture of polycrystalline carbon and amorphous carbon).

FIG. 8 shows an example of activation processing time dependence of the device current If and the emission current Ie. The activation process depends on the degree of vacuum, the pulse voltage applied to the device, etc.
f, the time dependence of the emission current Ie and the forming process change the state of the coating film formed on the deformed and altered thin film. When the activation processing voltage is applied by applying a pulse whose voltage is sufficiently higher than the forming voltage VF,
This is called high resistance activation processing. On the other hand, the case where the activation processing voltage is sufficiently lower than the forming voltage VF and the activation processing is performed by applying a pulse is referred to as low resistance activation processing.
A start voltage VP indicating a voltage control type negative resistance described later is provided.
, The activation processing is classified as a boundary.

6) It is preferable to carry out a stabilizing process in which the electron-emitting device thus produced is operated and driven in a vacuum atmosphere having a vacuum degree higher than those in the forming step and the activation step.

A vacuum atmosphere having a vacuum degree higher than the vacuum degree in the forming step and the activation step means, for example, about −10
It is a vacuum atmosphere having a vacuum degree of 6th torr or more,
More preferably, it is an ultra-high vacuum system, and the degree of vacuum is such that carbon and carbon compounds are hardly newly deposited.

That is, by encapsulating the electron-emitting device in the above-mentioned vacuum atmosphere, it becomes possible to suppress further deposition of carbon and carbon compounds, and thereby the device current If and emission current Ie are stabilized. .

The electron-emitting devices in the case of the high resistance activation process and the low resistance activation process have different stability in the initial stage of driving, and more preferably, the high resistance activation process is selected as the activation process.

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

The basic characteristics of the surface conduction electron-emitting device described below are that the voltage of the anode electrode 54 of the measurement / evaluation system in FIG. 7 is 1 kV to 10 kV and the distance H between the anode electrode 54 and the surface conduction electron-emitting device is 2 It is based on the measurement performed as ~ 8 mm.

First, the emission current Ie and the device current If,
FIG. 9 shows a typical example of the relationship with the element voltage Vf. still,
In FIG. 9A, the emission current Ie is markedly smaller than the device current If, and therefore is shown in arbitrary units.

As is apparent from FIG. 9A, the surface conduction electron-emitting device has the following three characteristic characteristics with respect to the emission current Ie.

First, the surface conduction electron-emitting device has a certain voltage (called a threshold voltage: Vt in FIG. 9A).
When the device voltage Vf exceeding h) is applied, the emission current Ie rapidly increases, while at the threshold voltage Vth or less, the emission current Ie is hardly detected. That is, it is a non-linear element having a clear threshold voltage Vth with respect to the emission current Ie.

Secondly, since the emission current Ie has a characteristic of monotonically increasing with respect to the element voltage Vf (called MI characteristic), the emission current Ie can be controlled by the element voltage Vf.

Thirdly, the emission charge captured by the anode electrode 54 (see FIG. 7) depends on the time for applying the device voltage Vf. That is, the amount of charges captured by the anode electrode 54 can be controlled by the time for which the device voltage Vf is applied.

The emission current Ie is MI with respect to the device voltage Vf.
At the same time as having the characteristics, the element current If may also have the MI characteristics with respect to the element voltage Vf. An example of the characteristic of such a surface conduction electron-emitting device is the characteristic shown in FIG. On the other hand, as shown in FIG. 9B, the device current I
f is a voltage control type negative resistance characteristic (V
In some cases, it may be referred to as a CNR characteristic). Which characteristic is exhibited depends on the manufacturing method of the surface conduction electron-emitting device and the measurement conditions at the time of measurement. The boundary voltage showing the VCNR characteristic is called Vp. However, the element current If is the element voltage Vf
Even if the device has a VCNR characteristic with respect to the emission current Ie
Has MI characteristics with respect to the element voltage Vf.

Due to the characteristic characteristics of the surface conduction electron-emitting device of the present invention as described above, 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 adjusted according to an input signal. Since it can be controlled, it can be applied to various fields.

Next, the arrangement of electron-emitting devices in the electron source of the present invention will be described by taking the case of using a surface conduction electron-emitting device as an example.

As a method of arranging the surface conduction electron-emitting devices in the electron source of the present invention, in addition to the ladder arrangement as described in the section of the prior art, n Y wires on m X direction wirings are arranged. There is an arrangement method in which directional wirings are provided via an interlayer insulating layer and an X-direction wiring and a Y-direction 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, this simple matrix arrangement will be described in detail.

According to the basic characteristics of the surface-conduction type electron-emitting device described above, the emitted electrons in the surface-conduction type electron-emitting device arranged in the simple matrix are between the opposing device electrodes at a voltage exceeding the threshold voltage. It can be controlled by the peak value and pulse width of the applied pulsed voltage. On the other hand, almost no electrons are emitted below the threshold voltage. Therefore, even when a large number of surface conduction electron-emitting devices are arranged, if the pulsed voltage is appropriately applied to each device, the surface conduction electron-emitting device is selected according to the input signal and the electron emission amount thereof is selected. Can be controlled, and individual surface conduction electron-emitting devices can be selected and driven independently by simple matrix wiring.

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

In FIG. 10, the substrate 1 is a glass plate or the like as already described, and the number and shape of the surface conduction electron-emitting devices 104 of the present invention arranged on the substrate 1 are appropriately set according to the application. It is something.

The m X-direction wirings 102 have external terminals Dx1, Dx2, ..., Dxm, respectively.
A conductive metal or the like formed on the top by a vacuum deposition method, a printing method, a sputtering method, or the like. In addition, the material, so that the voltage is supplied almost evenly to the large number of surface conduction electron-emitting devices 104,
The film thickness and wiring width are set.

The n Y-direction wirings 103 each have external terminals Dy1, Dy2, ..., Dyn, and are formed similarly to the X-direction wirings 102.

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

The interlayer insulating layer (not shown) is SiO ₂ or the like 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-direction 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. The X-direction wiring 102 and the Y-direction wiring 103 are drawn out as external terminals.

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

Here, the m X-direction wirings 102, the n Y-direction wirings 103, the connection lines 105, and the conductive metal of the opposing element electrodes have the same or a part of their constituent elements. Or, each may be different, Ni,
Cr, Au, Mo, W, Pt, Ti, Al, Cu, Pd
Such as metal or alloy and Pd, Ag, Au, RuO
₂ , a metal such as Pd-Ag, or a printed conductor composed of metal oxide and glass, a transparent conductor such as In ₂ O ₃ —SnO ₂ and a semiconductor material such as polysilicon, and the like. Wirings to these element electrodes may be collectively referred to as element electrodes when the same material as the element electrodes is used. The surface conduction electron-emitting device 104 may be formed either on the substrate 1 or on an interlayer insulating layer (not shown).

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

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

Next, an example of the image forming apparatus of the present invention using the electron source of the present invention having the above simple matrix arrangement will be described with reference to FIGS. 11 to 13. Note that FIG. 11 is a basic configuration diagram of the display panel 201, and FIG.
14 is a view showing the display panel 20 shown in FIG.
1 is a block diagram showing an example of a drive circuit for performing television display in accordance with an NTSC television signal in FIG.

In FIG. 11, 1 is a substrate of an electron source in which the surface conduction electron-emitting device of the present invention is arranged as described above, 111 is a rear plate on which the substrate 1 is fixed, and 116 is fluorescent light on the inner surface of the glass substrate 113. A face plate 112 on which the film 114 and the metal back 115 and the like are formed is a support frame, and frit glass or the like is applied to the rear plate 111, the support frame 112, and the face plate 116, and 400 to 500 in the atmosphere or nitrogen. The envelope 118 is configured by sealing by firing at 10 ° C. for 10 minutes or more.

In FIG. 11, 2 corresponds to the electron emitting portion in FIG. Reference numerals 102 and 103 denote X-direction wirings and Y-direction wirings connected to the pair of device electrodes 4 and 5 of the surface conduction electron-emitting device 104, and the external terminals Dx1 to Dx, respectively.
xm, Dy1 to Dyn.

The envelope 118 is composed of 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 when the substrate 1 itself has sufficient strength, the separate rear plate 111 is not necessary, and the rear plate 111 is directly supported on the substrate 1. 112 is sealed,
The envelope 118 may be composed of the face plate 116, the support frame 112, and the substrate 1. Further, by further installing a support body (not shown) called a spacer between the face plate 116 and the rear plate 111, it is possible to form the envelope 118 having sufficient strength against atmospheric pressure.

In the case of monochrome, the fluorescent film 114 is composed of only the fluorescent substance 122, but in the case of the color fluorescent film 114, depending on the arrangement of the fluorescent substances 122, a black stripe (FIG. 12A) or a black matrix (see FIG. 12). 12
(B)) Black conductive material 121 and phosphor 122, etc.
Composed of and. The purpose of providing the black stripes and the black matrix is to make the color mixture, etc., inconspicuous by making the coating portions between the phosphors 122 of the three primary colors necessary for color display black, and to reflect external light on the phosphor film 114. This is to suppress the decrease in contrast due to. As the material of the black conductive material 121, not only a commonly used material containing graphite as a main component, but also another material may be used as long as it is conductive and has little light transmission and reflection. it can.

As a method for 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. 11, the fluorescent film 1
A metal back 115 is usually provided on the inner surface side of 14. The purpose of the metal back 115 is to allow the phosphor 122 (see FIG.
2)) to improve brightness by specularly reflecting the light to the inner surface side to the face plate 116 side, to act as an electrode for applying an electron beam accelerating voltage, and in the envelope 118. This is to protect the phosphor 122 from damage due to collision of the generated negative ions. The metal back 115 is formed on the fluorescent film 1 after the fluorescent film 114 is formed.
It can be manufactured by performing a smoothing treatment (usually called filming) on the inner surface of 14 and then depositing Al by vacuum vapor deposition 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 performing the above-mentioned sealing, in the case of a color, the phosphors 122 of the respective colors must correspond to the electron-emitting devices 104, so that it is necessary to perform sufficient alignment.

The inside of the envelope 118 is sealed to a vacuum of about 10 −6 torr through an exhaust pipe (not shown). It should be noted that, through an exhaust pipe (not shown), a vacuum system such as a rotary pump or a turbo pump is used as a pump system, and the inside of the envelope 118 has a vacuum degree of about 10 −6 torr. A voltage is applied between the device electrodes 4 and 5 through the terminals Dx1 to Dxm and Dy1 to Dyn outside the container to form the electron emitting portion 2 by the above-described forming treatment and activation treatment, and then baking at 80 ° C to 150 ° C. There is a case where, for example, the ion pump or the like is switched to the ultra-high vacuum apparatus system as a pump system while performing the step 3 to 15 hours. This is because the switching and baking of the ultrahigh vacuum device system satisfy the monotonically increasing characteristics (MI characteristics) of the device current If and the emission current Ie of the surface conduction electron-emitting device described above. It is not limited to.

Further, a getter process may be performed in order to maintain the degree of vacuum after the envelope 118 is sealed. This is done immediately before or after sealing the envelope 118,
This is a process of forming a vapor deposition film by heating a getter (not shown) arranged at a predetermined position in the envelope 118 by a heating method such as resistance heating or high frequency heating. The getter usually has Ba or the like as a main component, and is, for example, 1 × 10 −5 to 1 × 10 −7 tor due to the adsorption action of the vapor deposition film.
This is for maintaining the vacuum degree of r.

The above-described forming process and the subsequent steps of manufacturing the electron-emitting device are usually performed immediately before or after the encapsulation of the envelope 118, and the details thereof are as described above.

The display panel 201 described above is displayed, for example, in FIG.
It can be driven by a driving circuit as shown in FIG.
In FIG. 13, 201 is a 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 sync signal separation circuit, 2
Reference numeral 07 is a modulation signal generator, and Vx and Va are DC voltage sources.

As shown in FIG. 13, the display panel 20.
1 is connected to an external electric circuit via the external terminals Dx1 to Dxm, the external terminals Dy1 to Dyn, and the high-voltage terminal Hv. Of these, the external terminals Dx1 to Dxm
The surface conduction electron-emitting devices provided in the display panel 201, that is, the group of surface conduction electron-emitting devices arranged in a matrix of m rows and n columns are sequentially driven one row (n elements at a time). A scanning signal for moving is applied.

On the other hand, a modulation signal for controlling the output electron beam of each surface conduction electron-emitting device of one row selected by the scanning signal is applied to the terminal Dy1 to the external terminal Dyn. Further, the high voltage terminal Hv is supplied with a DC voltage of, for example, 10 kV from the DC voltage source Va. This is an accelerating voltage for giving enough energy to excite the phosphor to the electron beam output from the surface conduction electron-emitting device.

The scanning circuit 202 has m switching elements (schematically shown by S1 to Sm in FIG. 13) inside, and each of the switching elements S1 to Sm is an output voltage of the DC voltage power supply Vx or 0V. One of (ground level) is selected and electrically connected to the external terminals Dx1 to Dxm of the display panel 201. Each of the switching elements S1 to Sm includes a control circuit 203.
It operates on the basis of the control signal Tscan output from the device, and in fact, it can be easily configured by combining elements having a switching function such as an FET.

The DC voltage source Vx in this example has a threshold drive voltage applied to the surface-conduction electron-emitting devices which are not scanned, based on the characteristics (threshold voltage) of the surface-conduction electron-emitting devices. It is set to output a constant voltage that is less than or equal to the value voltage.

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

The synchronizing signal separation circuit 206 is a circuit for separating a synchronizing signal component and a luminance signal component from an externally input NTSC television signal, and as is well known, a frequency separation (filter). If you use a circuit,
It can be easily constructed. Sync signal separation circuit 206
As is well known, the sync signal separated by is composed of a vertical sync signal and a horizontal sync signal. here,
For convenience of explanation, it is shown as Tsync. 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 shown as an ATA signal. This DATA signal is input to the shift register 204.

The shift register 204 is for converting the DATA signal serially input in time series into serial / parallel conversion for each line of the image, and based on the control signal Tsft sent from the control circuit 203. Operate. The control signal Tsft is supplied to the shift register 20.
In other words, the shift clock may be four. Also,
One line of serial / parallel converted image (SCE
(Corresponding to driving data for n elements of
It is output from the shift register 204 as n parallel signals 1 to Idn.

The line memory 205 is a storage device for storing data for one line of an image for a required time,
The contents of Id1 to Idn are stored according to the control signal Tmry sent from the control circuit 203. The stored contents are output as Id'1 to Id'n and input to the modulation signal generator 207.

The modulation signal generator 207 is a signal source for appropriately driving and modulating each of the electron-emitting devices according to each of the image data Id'1 to Id'n, and its output signal is a terminal Doy1. Or Don is applied to the electron-emitting device in the display panel 201.

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. Further, for a voltage exceeding the threshold voltage, the emission current also changes according to the change in the voltage applied to the surface conduction electron-emitting device. Material of surface conduction electron-emitting device,
The value of the threshold voltage and the degree of change of the emission current with respect to the applied voltage may change by changing the configuration and the manufacturing method. In any case, the following can be said.

That is, when a pulsed voltage is applied to the surface conduction electron-emitting device, no electron emission occurs even if a voltage below the threshold voltage is applied, but a voltage exceeding the threshold voltage is applied. If it does, electron emission occurs. At that time, firstly, it is possible to control the intensity of the output electron beam by changing the peak value of the voltage pulse. Secondly, it is possible to control the total amount of charges of the output electron beam by changing the width of the voltage pulse.

Therefore, as a method of modulating the surface conduction electron-emitting device according to the 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 uses a voltage modulation method circuit that generates a voltage pulse of a constant length, but can appropriately modulate the pulse peak value according to the 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 circuit of the pulse width modulation method capable of appropriately modulating the pulse width according to the input data is used. To use.

The shift register 204 and the line memory 20
5 may be of 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 sync signal separation circuit 206 into a digital signal. This can be done by providing an A / D converter at the output of the sync signal separation circuit 206.

Also 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 the modulation signal generator 207 is slightly different.

That is, in the case of the voltage modulation system using a digital signal, for the modulation signal generator 207, for example, a well-known D / A conversion circuit may be used, and an amplification circuit or the like may be added if necessary. Further, in the case of a pulse width modulation method using a digital signal, the modulation signal generator 207, for example, a high-speed oscillator and a counter (counter) that counts the number of waves output by the oscillator, and the output value of the counter and the 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 for voltage-amplifying the pulse-width-modulated modulation signal output from the comparator to the drive voltage of the surface conduction electron-emitting device may be added.

On the other hand, in the case of the voltage modulation method using analog signals, the modulation signal generator 207 may be, for example, an amplifier circuit using a well-known operational amplifier or the like, and a level shift circuit or the like may be added if necessary. May be. Further, in the case of the pulse width modulation method using an analog signal, for example, a well-known voltage controlled oscillation circuit (VCO) may be used, and the voltage is amplified to the drive voltage of the 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 terminals Dx1 to Dx.
By applying voltage from m and Dy1 to Dyn,
Electrons can be emitted from necessary electron-emitting devices,
A high voltage is applied to the metal back 115 or a transparent electrode (not shown) through the high voltage terminal Hv to accelerate the electron beam, and the excited electron beam is caused to collide with the fluorescent film 114 to generate excitation / light emission. A television display can be performed according to a television signal.

The above-described structure is a schematic structure necessary for obtaining the image forming apparatus of the present invention used for display or the like, and the detailed parts such as the material of each member are limited to the above contents. However, it is appropriately selected so as to suit the purpose of the image forming apparatus. Further, although the NTSC system has been described as the input signal, the image forming apparatus according to the present invention is not limited to this, and other systems such as PAL and SECAM systems may be used, and more scanning lines than these may be used. It is also possible to use a high-definition TV system such as a TV signal such as the MUSE system.

Next, an example of the above-mentioned ladder-type electron source and an image forming apparatus of the present invention using the electron source will be described with reference to FIGS. 14 and 15.

In FIG. 14, 1 is a substrate, 104 is a surface conduction electron-emitting device, and 304 is a common wiring for connecting the surface conduction electron-emitting device 104. Ten common wirings are provided, each having external terminals D1 to D10. are doing.

The surface conduction electron-emitting device 104 is the substrate 1
A plurality of them are arranged in parallel on the top. This is called an element row. A plurality of these element rows are arranged to form an electron source.

It is possible to independently drive each element row 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). That is, a voltage exceeding the threshold voltage may be applied to the element row where the electron beam is desired to be emitted, and a voltage lower than the threshold voltage may be applied to the element row where the electron beam is not desired to be emitted. The application of such a drive voltage applies to the common wirings D2 to D9 located between the element rows, the common wirings 304 adjacent to each other, that is, the external terminals D2 and D3, D4 and D5, D6 and D7 and D8 adjacent to each other. The common wiring 304 of D9 and D9 may be integrated into the same wiring.

FIG. 15 is a diagram showing the structure of a display panel 301 provided with the above-mentioned ladder-type electron source, which is another example of the electron source of the present invention.

In FIG. 15, 302 is a grid electrode, 303 is an opening for passing electrons, D1 to Dm are external terminals for applying a voltage to each surface conduction electron-emitting device, and G1 to G1.
Gn is an external terminal connected to the grid electrode 302. Further, the common wiring 304 between each element row is formed on the substrate 1 as an integrated single wiring.

Note that, in FIG. 15, the same reference numerals as those in FIG. 11 indicate the same members, and a big difference from the display panel 201 using the electron source of the simple matrix arrangement shown in FIG. The point is that the grid electrode 302 is provided between 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 the electron beam emitted from the surface conduction electron-emitting device 104, and the electron beam is applied to the stripe-shaped electrode provided orthogonal to the device row in the ladder-type arrangement. To pass
A circular opening 303 is provided for each of the surface conduction electron-emitting devices 104.

The shape and arrangement position of the grid electrode 302 are
It does not necessarily have to be as shown in FIG. 15, and a large number of openings 303 may be provided in a mesh shape, and the grid electrode 302 may be provided, for example, around or near the surface conduction electron-emitting device 104. Good.

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

As described above, the image forming apparatus of the present invention is
An image formation that can be obtained by using the electron source of the present invention in either a simple matrix arrangement or a trapezoidal arrangement and is suitable not only as a display device for the television broadcast described above but also as a display device for a video conference system, a computer, or the like. The device is obtained. Further, it can also be used as an exposure device of an optical printer configured with a photosensitive drum.

[0130]

EXAMPLES The present invention will be described in more detail below with reference to examples.

Example 1 The structure of the surface conduction electron-emitting device used in this example is the same as that shown in FIG. In the electron source of this embodiment, four surface conduction electron-emitting devices having the same shape are formed on the substrate 1.

The method of manufacturing the surface conduction electron-emitting device is basically the same as the method described with reference to FIG. The basic configuration and manufacturing method of the surface conduction electron-emitting device used in this example will be described below with reference to FIGS. 1 and 5.

In FIG. 1, 1 is a substrate, 4 and 5 are device electrodes, 2 is an electron emitting portion, 3 is a conductive film, 6 is a crack formed by a forming process, and 7 is a resistor film.

The manufacturing procedure will be described below with reference to FIGS.

Step-a On a substrate 1 in which a 0.5 μm thick silicon oxide film is formed on a cleaned soda-lime glass by a sputtering method,
A pattern having a desired electrode shape opening is formed with a photoresist (RD-2000N-41, manufactured by Hitachi Chemical Co., Ltd.),
By vacuum evaporation method, Ti with a thickness of 50 Å,
1000 Å thick Ni was sequentially deposited.
Dissolve the photoresist pattern with an organic solvent, and use Ni / Ti
The deposited film was lifted off to form device electrodes 4 and 5 having a device electrode interval L of 20 μm and a width W of 300 μm.

Step-b Next, in order to pattern the conductive film 3 for forming the electron emission portion 2 into a predetermined shape, a vapor deposition mask which is often used is placed on the device electrodes 4 and 5 to form a film. Thick 1000
An Angstrom Cr film is deposited and patterned by vacuum evaporation, and organic Pd (ccp4230 manufactured by Okuno Chemical Industries Co., Ltd.) is spin-coated by a spinner on it, and the temperature is 300 ° C.
Was heated and baked for 10 minutes. The thickness of the conductive film 3 mainly composed of fine particles of palladium oxide thus formed was 100 Å, and the sheet resistance value was 2 × 10 4 Ω / □. Incidentally, the fine particle film described here is a film in which a plurality of fine particles are gathered as described above, and as a fine structure thereof, not only the fine particles are individually dispersed and arranged, but the fine particles are adjacent to each other, or
It refers to overlapping films (including island-like films), and the particle size means the diameter of fine particles whose particle shape can be recognized in this state.

Step-c The Cr film and the conductive film 3 after firing were etched with an acid etchant to form a desired pattern.

Through the above steps, the device electrodes 4, 5 and the conductive film 3 were formed on the substrate 1.

Step-d The substrate 1 which has undergone the above steps is installed in the measurement / evaluation system of FIG. 7, exhausted by a vacuum pump, and after reaching a vacuum degree of 2 × 10 −5 torr, the element voltage Vf Power supply 5 for applying
From No. 1, a voltage was applied between the device electrodes 4 and 5 of 2 out of 4 devices, and an energization process (forming process) was performed. The voltage waveform of the forming process has a waveform as shown in FIG.

In FIG. 6 (b), T1 and T2 are the pulse width and pulse interval of the voltage waveform. In this embodiment, T1 is 1 ms and T2 is 10 ms, and the peak value of the triangular wave (when forming) The peak voltage was increased in 0.1 V steps to perform the forming process. Further, during the forming process, at the same time, a resistance measurement pulse was inserted between T2 at a voltage of 0.1 V to measure the resistance. The forming process was terminated when the measured value by the resistance measurement pulse became about 1 M ohm or more, and at the same time, the application of the voltage to the surface conduction electron-emitting device was terminated. The forming voltage VF of each surface conduction electron-emitting device was 5.1V and 5.0V.

Step-e Next, a Pd film was deposited in a thickness of about 30 Å by RF sputtering. Here, this film is a so-called island-shaped thin film and exhibits a larger resistance than a normal continuous film. Next, patterning was performed by a photolithography technique to form a resistor 7. At this time, the device electrodes 4, 5
The resistance value between them was about 100 k ohms.

Step-f Then, the surface-conduction type electron-emitting device subjected to the forming treatment has a pulse width T at the same period as T2 in the step-d.
A rectangular wave of No. 1 was applied for activation treatment. Here, the peak value of the rectangular wave was set to 14V. That is, high resistance activation processing was performed.

At this time, the degree of vacuum in the measurement and evaluation device of FIG. 7 was 1.5 × 10 −5 torr. Since the emission current Ie reached the maximum in about 30 minutes, the activation process was terminated. In this way, the electron emitting portion 2 was formed, and a surface conduction electron-emitting device was produced. Hereinafter, this is referred to as element A.

For comparison, two elements were manufactured in the same manner from step-a to step-d, omitting step-e. This is called element B.

Further, the electron emission characteristics of the devices A and B produced in the above steps were measured using the above-described measurement evaluation system of FIG. This measurement was carried out under conditions where the exhaust was evacuated using an ultra-high vacuum evacuation device such as an ion pump that does not use vacuum oil, and contamination of organic substances was prevented as much as possible.

The distance between the anode electrode 54 and the surface conduction electron-emitting device in FIG.
Was 1 kV, and the degree of vacuum in the vacuum apparatus at the time of measuring the electron emission characteristics was 1 × 10 −6.5 torr.

14 V is applied between the device electrodes 4 and 5 for both devices A and B.
Then, the device current If and the emission current Ie flowing at that time were measured. A stable device current If and emission current Ie were observed in both the devices A and B from the initial measurement,
In the device A, the device voltage If was 14 V, the device current If was 1.3 milliamperes, and the emission current Ie was 2.5 microamperes. In the device B, the device current If was measured to be 0.5 milliamperes, and the emission current Ie was measured to be 0.5 microamperes. From the above, it can be seen that the device A according to the present invention has an electron emission current Ie increased as compared with the device B.

Example 2 This example is an element having the same form as that of Example 1, and the steps from a to step d in Example 1 are performed in the same manner as above, and then vacuum activation is performed. By a vapor deposition method, Au thin films having a thickness of 50 angstrom were laminated using a metal mask to form a resistor film 7. That is, the surface-conduction type electron-emitting device manufactured by the activation treatment showed the same good characteristics as in Example 1.

Embodiment 3 This embodiment is different from Embodiments 1 and 2 in that the resistor film 7 is placed below the conductive film 3. First,
After depositing a Cr thin film on a soda-lime glass substrate 1 in a thickness of about 200 angstroms, the process-a to the process-d of Example 1 are performed.
Process corresponding to. In the forming process, the process was terminated when the resistance value between the device electrodes 4 and 5 reached about 100 kΩ. After that, when the activation treatment was performed, it was possible to obtain characteristics substantially equivalent to those in Example 1.

On the other hand, as a comparative example, without providing a Cr thin film,
Other than that, the surface conduction electron-emitting device manufactured by the same steps as in this example did not have stable characteristics, and the emission current Ie was about one digit smaller. That is, it is considered that the electron emission portion is formed and the Cr thin film functions as a current path other than the current path that contributes to electron emission, even though the forming process is completed with a low resistance value of 100 kΩ. Be done. At this time, the Cr thin film may differ from the initial physical properties, but the point is that the film formed under the conductive film 3 is considered to be the resistor film 7 intended by the present invention.

Example 4 In this example, the resistor film 7 is provided below the conductive film 3 as in the case of Example 3. However, as the resistor film 7, a part of the semiconductor substrate has a low resistance. It has been transformed. That is, the substrate 1
Example 3 using a non-doped silicon wafer as
Boron was ion-implanted into the portion corresponding to the Cr thin film in, and the subsequent steps were the same as in Example 3. as a result,
Good results similar to those in Example 3 were obtained.

Embodiment 5 This embodiment is an example of an image forming apparatus using an electron source in which a large number of surface conduction electron-emitting devices are arranged in a simple matrix.

A plan view of a part of the electron source is shown in FIG. In addition, FIG. 17 is a sectional view taken along the line AA ′ in FIG.
8 and FIG. However, the same reference numerals in FIGS. 16, 17, 18, and 19 indicate the same members.

Here, 1 is a substrate, 102 is an X-direction wiring (also called lower wiring), 103 is a Y-direction wiring (also called upper wiring), 3 is a conductive film, 4 and 5 are element electrodes, and 151 is interlayer insulation. A layer 152 is a contact hole for electrically connecting the device electrode 5 and the lower wiring 102.

Next, the manufacturing method will be specifically described in the order of steps based on FIGS. 18 and 19. Each of the following steps a to h corresponds to (a) to (h) in FIGS. 18 and 19.

Step-a On a substrate 1 in which a 0.5 μm-thick silicon oxide film is formed on a cleaned soda-lime glass by a sputtering method,
After sequentially depositing 50 Å thick Cr and 6000 Å thick Au by vacuum deposition,
A photoresist (AZ1370, Hoechst) is spin-coated with a spinner, baked, and then exposed and developed with a photomask image to form a resist pattern of the lower wiring 102, and a Au / Cr deposited film is wet-etched to obtain a desired pattern. The lower wiring 102 having the shape of the above is formed.

Step-b Next, an interlayer insulating layer 151 made of a silicon oxide film having a thickness of 1.0 μm was deposited by RF sputtering.

Step-c Contact hole 1 is formed in the silicon oxide film deposited in Step b.
A photoresist pattern for forming 52 was formed, and the interlayer insulating layer 151 was etched using this as a mask to form a contact hole 152. Etching is CF ₄
And Reactive Ion using H ₂ gas
-Etching) method.

Step-d After that, a pattern to be the device electrodes 4, 5 and the gap G between the device electrodes is formed into a photoresist (RD-2000N-41).
・ Hitachi Chemical Co., Ltd.), and a thickness of 5 by vacuum evaporation method.
0 Å of Ti and 1000 Å of Ni 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. Here, the shape of the gap is the same as that of the second embodiment.

Step-e After forming the photoresist pattern of the upper wiring 103 on the device electrodes 4 and 5, Ti having a thickness of 50 Å,
Au of thickness 5000 Å is sequentially deposited by vacuum evaporation, and unnecessary portions are removed by lift-off.
The upper wiring 103 having a desired shape was formed.

Step-f Next, a Cr film 153 having a film thickness of 1000 Å is deposited and patterned by vacuum evaporation, and an organic P film is formed on the Cr film 153.
d (ccp4230, Okuno Seiyaku Co., Ltd.) was spin-coated with a spinner and heated and baked at 300 ° C. for 10 minutes. The thickness of the conductive film 3 mainly composed of fine particles of palladium oxide thus formed was 100 Å, and the sheet resistance value was 5 × 10 4 Ω / □. Incidentally, the fine particle film described here is a film in which a plurality of fine particles are gathered as described above, and as a fine structure thereof, not only the fine particles are individually dispersed and arranged, but also the fine particles are adjacent to each other or overlap each other. (Including islands), the particle diameter means the diameter of the fine particles whose particle shape is recognizable in the above state.

Step-g The Cr film 153 and the conductive film 3 after firing were etched with an acid etchant to form a desired pattern.

Step-h A resist was applied to the portion other than the contact hole 152 to form a pattern, and Ti having a thickness of 50 Å and Au having a thickness of 5000 Å were sequentially deposited by vacuum evaporation. Contact holes 152 were filled by removing unnecessary portions by lift-off.

A voltage is applied between the device electrodes 4 and 5 of the surface conduction electron-emitting device 104 through the external terminals Dx1 to Dxm and Dy1 to Dyn, and the conductive film 3 is subjected to a forming process to form the electron emitting portion 2. did.

The voltage waveform of the forming process is shown in FIG.
Same as (b). Further, in the present embodiment, T1 is 1 ms and T2 is 10 ms, and about 1 × 10 −5 tor.
It was performed under a vacuum atmosphere of r.

[0166] The electron emitting portion 2 created in this way
Was in a state in which fine particles containing a palladium element as a main component were dispersed and arranged, and the average particle diameter of the fine particles was 30 Å.

Subsequently, a resistor was formed by using the Pd thin film in the same manner as in Example 1.

After fixing the substrate 1 provided with a large number of surface conduction electron-emitting devices 104 as described above on the rear plate 111, the face plate 116 (fluorescent on the inner surface of the glass substrate 113) is placed 5 mm above the substrate 1. The support frame 11 is formed by forming the film 114 and the metal back 115.
2, the face plate 116, the support frame 1
12. Frit glass was applied to the joint portion of the rear plate 111, and baked by firing at 400 ° C. for 10 minutes in the air to seal. Further, the frit glass was also used to fix the substrate 1 to the rear plate 111.

In the case of monochrome, the fluorescent film 114 is composed of only the fluorescent substance 122, but in the present embodiment, the fluorescent substance 122 is used.
Adopts a stripe shape (FIG. 12 (a)), a black stripe is first formed, and each color phosphor 12 is formed in the gap.
2 was applied to produce a fluorescent film 114. As a material for the black stripe, a material which is commonly used and whose main component is graphite was used.

A slurry method was used as a method for applying the phosphor 122 to the glass substrate 113. In addition, the fluorescent film 11
A metal back 115 was provided on the inner surface side of No. 4. The metal back 115 was manufactured by performing smoothing processing (usually called filming) on the inner surface of the fluorescent film 114 after manufacturing the fluorescent film 114, and then vacuum-depositing Al.

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, but in this embodiment, the metal back 115 is used. Since sufficient conductivity was obtained only by itself, it was omitted.

When performing the above-mentioned sealing, in the case of a color, the phosphors 122 of the respective colors and the surface conduction electron-emitting device 104 have to correspond to each other, so that sufficient alignment is performed.

Next, after the above-mentioned sealing, the atmosphere in the glass container is evacuated by a vacuum pump through an exhaust pipe (not shown), and then the same waveform as the forming, the peak value of 14 V, and the degree of vacuum of 2 × 10 −. The high resistance activation process was performed while measuring the device current If and the emission current Ie at a vacuum degree of the fifth power.

As described above, the forming step and the high resistance activating step were carried out to manufacture the surface conduction electron-emitting device 104 having the electron-emitting portion 2.

After that, the vacuum was evacuated to about 10 −6.5 torr, and an exhaust pipe (not shown) was heated and welded by a gas burner to seal the envelope. In order to maintain the degree of vacuum of, the getter process was performed by the high frequency heating method.

In the image forming apparatus of the present invention completed as described above, the scanning signal and the modulation signal are respectively sent to the surface conduction electron-emitting device 104 from the signal generating means (not shown) through the external terminals Dx1 to Dxm and Dy1 to Dyn. Electrons are emitted by applying the voltage, and the metal back 115 or the transparent electrode (not shown) through the high voltage terminal Hv.
High voltage of several kV or more is applied to the electron beam to accelerate the electron beam,
An image was displayed by colliding with the fluorescent film 114 to excite and emit light.

Embodiment 6 In FIG. 20, image information provided from various image information sources such as television broadcasting can be displayed on a display panel using the surface conduction electron-emitting device described above as an electron source. It is a diagram showing an example of an image forming apparatus of the present invention configured as described above.

In the figure, 16100 is a display panel and 1
Reference numeral 6101 denotes a display panel drive circuit, and 16102.
Is a display controller, 16103 is a multiplexer, 16104 is a decoder, 16105 is an input / output interface circuit, 16106 is a CPU, 16107 is an image generation circuit, 16108, 16109 and 1611.
0 is an image memory interface circuit, 16111 is an image input interface circuit, 16112 and 161.
Reference numeral 13 is a TV signal receiving circuit, and 16114 is an input unit.

When receiving a signal including both video information and audio information, such as a television signal, the present image forming apparatus naturally reproduces audio at the same time as displaying video. Descriptions of circuits, speakers, and the like relating to reception, separation, reproduction, processing, storage, etc. of audio information that are not directly related to the features of the present invention will be omitted.

The functions of the respective parts will be described below along the flow of image signals.

First, the TV signal receiving circuit 16113 is a circuit for receiving a TV signal transmitted using a wireless transmission system such as radio waves or spatial optical communication.

The TV signal system to be received is not particularly limited. For example, NTSC system, PAL system, SEC.
Any method such as AM method may be used. Further, a TV signal having a larger number of scanning lines than these, for example, a so-called high-definition TV such as the MUSE system, is a signal suitable for taking advantage of the display panel suitable for a large area and a large number of pixels. Is the source.

The TV signal received by the TV signal receiving circuit 16113 is output to the decoder 16104.

The TV signal receiving circuit 16112 is a circuit for receiving a TV signal transmitted using a wire transmission system such as a coaxial cable or an optical fiber. A TV for receiving, similar to the TV signal receiving circuit 16113.
The signal system is not particularly limited, and the TV signal received by this circuit is also output to the decoder 16104.

Image input interface circuit 16111
Is a circuit for capturing an image signal supplied from an image input device such as a TV camera or an image reading scanner, and the captured image signal is output to the decoder 16104.

Image memory interface circuit 161
10 is a video tape recorder (hereinafter abbreviated as VTR)
The circuit for fetching the image signal stored in is output to the decoder 16104.

Image memory interface circuit 161
Reference numeral 09 denotes a circuit for capturing the image signal stored in the video disc, and the captured image signal is output to the decoder 16104.

Image memory interface circuit 161
Reference numeral 08 denotes a circuit for taking in an image signal from a device that stores still image data, such as a still image disc,
The captured still image data is input to the decoder 16104.

Input / output interface circuit 16105
Is a circuit for connecting the display device to an external computer, a computer network, or an output device such as a printer. It is of course possible to input / output image data and character / graphic information, and in some cases, input / output control signals and numerical data between the CPU 16106 of the image forming apparatus and the outside. .

The image generation circuit 16107 receives image data, character / graphic information, or CPU 1 input from the outside via the input / output interface circuit 16105.
6106 is a circuit for generating display image data based on image data and character / graphic information output from the 6106. Inside this circuit, for example, a rewritable memory for storing image data and character / graphic information, a read-only memory that stores image patterns corresponding to character codes, a processor for image processing, etc. , And the circuits necessary for image generation are incorporated.

The display image data generated by this circuit is output to the decoder 16104, but in some cases, it may be output to an external computer network or printer via the input / output interface circuit 16105.

The CPU 16106 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 16103 to appropriately select or combine image signals to be displayed on the display panel. In that case, a control signal is generated to the display panel controller 16102 according to the image signal to be displayed, and the display frequency of the display device, the scanning method (for example, interlaced or non-interlaced), the number of scanning lines in one screen, and the like of the display device. The operation is controlled appropriately. In addition, the image data or the character / graphic information is directly output to the image generation circuit 16107, or the external computer or memory is accessed through the input / output interface circuit 16105 to display the image data or the character / graphic information. input.

It should be noted that the CPU 16106 may 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 input / output interface circuit 161
It is also possible to connect to an external computer network via 05 and collaborate with an external device for work such as numerical calculation.

The input unit 16114 is the CPU 1610.
6 is for the user to input commands, programs, data, etc., and various input devices such as a joystick, a bar code reader, a voice recognition device, etc. can be used in addition to the keyboard and mouse. .

The decoder 16104 is a circuit for inversely converting various image signals input from the above 16107 to 16113 into three primary color signals or luminance signals and I signals and Q signals. It is desirable that the decoder 16104 has an image memory therein, as indicated by a dotted line in the figure. This is for handling a television signal which requires an image memory for reverse conversion, for example, including the MUSE system.

By providing the image memory, it is easy to display a still image. Alternatively, the image generation circuit 1610
7 and the CPU 16106, there is an advantage that image processing and editing such as image thinning, interpolation, enlargement, reduction, and composition are facilitated.

The multiplexer 16103 is the CPU
The display image is appropriately selected based on the control signal input from the 16106. That is, the multiplexer 16
103 selects a desired image signal from the inversely converted image signals input from the decoder 16104 and outputs it to the drive circuit 16101. In that case, by switching and selecting image signals within one screen display time, it is possible to divide one screen into a plurality of areas and display different images depending on the areas, as in a so-called multi-screen television. .

Display panel controller 1610
Reference numeral 2 is a circuit for controlling the operation of the drive circuit 16101 based on the control signal input from the CPU 16106.

As a signal related to the basic operation of the display panel, for example, a signal for controlling an operation sequence of a power source (not shown) for driving the display panel is output to the drive circuit 16101. As a signal relating to the display panel driving method, for example, a signal for controlling a screen display frequency and a scanning method (for example, interlaced or non-interlaced) is supplied to the driving circuit 16101.
Output to Further, in some cases, a control signal relating to image quality adjustment such as luminance, contrast, color tone, and sharpness of a display image may be output to the driver circuit 16101.

The drive circuit 16101 is a circuit for generating a drive signal to be applied to the display panel 16100, and the image signal input from the multiplexer 16103 and the display panel controller 16 are provided.
It operates based on a control signal input from 102.

Although the functions of the respective parts have been described above, the image information input from various image information sources can be displayed on the display panel 16100 in the image forming apparatus with the configuration illustrated in FIG. . That is, various image signals such as television broadcast are inversely converted by the decoder 16104 and then the multiplexer 16
It is appropriately selected in 103 and input to the driving circuit 16101. On the other hand, the display controller 16102
Generates a control signal for controlling the operation of the drive circuit 16101 according to the image signal to be displayed. Drive circuit 16
Reference numeral 101 applies a drive signal to the display panel 16100 based on the image signal and the control signal. As a result, the image is displayed on the display panel 16100. These series of operations are controlled by the CPU 16106 as a whole.

In this image forming apparatus, the image memory built in the decoder 16104 and the image generation circuit 16 are included.
In addition to displaying the selected information from 107 and the information, the image information to be displayed may be enlarged or reduced, for example.
Image processing such as rotation, movement, edge enhancement, thinning, interpolation, color conversion, image aspect ratio conversion, combining, erasing,
It is also possible to perform image editing such as connection, replacement, and fitting. Although not particularly mentioned in the description of this embodiment, a dedicated circuit for processing and editing audio information may be provided as in the above-mentioned image processing and image editing.

Therefore, the present image forming apparatus includes a display device for television broadcasting, a terminal device for a video conference, an image editing device for handling still images and moving images, a terminal device for a computer,
It is possible to combine the functions of office terminals such as word processors, game machines, etc., with a very wide range of applications for industrial or consumer use.

Note that FIG. 20 shows only an example of the configuration of an image forming apparatus using a display panel having a surface conduction electron-emitting device as an electron beam source, and the image forming apparatus of the present invention is not shown. It goes without saying that the present invention is not limited to this.

For example, among the components shown in FIG. 20, circuits relating to functions unnecessary for the purpose of use may be omitted.
On the contrary, the constituent elements may be added depending on the purpose of use. For example, when the display device is applied as a videophone, a TV camera, a voice microphone,
It is preferable to add a illuminator, a transmission / reception circuit including a modem, and the like to the components.

In this image forming apparatus, since the surface conduction electron-emitting device is used as the electron source, the display panel can be easily thinned and the depth of the image forming apparatus can be reduced. In addition, a display panel using a surface conduction electron-emitting device as an electron beam source can easily have a large screen, has high brightness, and has excellent viewing angle characteristics, so that the image forming apparatus has a realistic and powerful image. Can be displayed with good visibility.

[0208]

As described above, according to the present invention,
The electron emitting portion has a large electric field in the direction parallel to the substrate for emitting electrons, and it is possible to reduce re-drop of electrons to the device electrode in the vicinity of the electron emitting portion. It can be manufactured.

An electron source that emits electrons in response to an input signal is an electron source in which a plurality of the above-mentioned electron-emitting devices are arranged on a substrate, and the plurality of electron-emitting devices are arranged in parallel on the substrate. Of the electron-emitting device having a plurality of rows of electron-emitting devices each having both ends connected to a wiring and further having a modulation means, or m number of X-direction wirings and n electrically insulated from each other on the substrate. By using an electron source in which a plurality of electron-emitting devices in which a pair of device electrodes of the electron-emitting device are connected to the Y-direction wiring are arranged, the electron source can be manufactured stably and with high yield. Further, due to the improved efficiency, it is possible to provide an inexpensive device that consumes less power, reduces the burden on peripheral circuits and the like.

The image forming apparatus is an apparatus for forming an image on the basis of an input signal, and is an image forming apparatus characterized by comprising at least an image forming member and the electron source. The electron emission characteristics and the efficiency are improved, and in an image forming apparatus using, for example, a phosphor as an image forming member, a bright and high quality image forming apparatus with low current, for example, a flat television is realized.

[Brief description of drawings]

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

FIG. 2 is a diagram illustrating the principle of the surface conduction electron-emitting device of the present invention.

FIG. 3 is a comparative diagram illustrating the principle of the surface conduction electron-emitting device of the present invention.

FIG. 4 is a schematic configuration diagram showing a vertical surface conduction electron-emitting device of the present invention.

FIG. 5 is a diagram showing a method for manufacturing a surface conduction electron-emitting device of the present invention.

FIG. 6 is a diagram showing an example of a forming waveform.

FIG. 7 is a schematic configuration diagram showing an example of a measurement / evaluation system of the surface conduction electron-emitting device of the present invention.

FIG. 8 is a relationship diagram between activation processing and device characteristics of the surface conduction electron-emitting device of the present invention.

FIG. 9: Emission current of the surface conduction electron-emitting device of the present invention-
It is a figure which shows an element voltage characteristic (IV characteristic).

FIG. 10 is a schematic configuration diagram of an electron source of the present invention in a simple matrix arrangement.

FIG. 11 is a schematic configuration diagram of a display panel used in the image forming apparatus of the present invention using an electron source having a simple matrix arrangement.

12 is a diagram showing a fluorescent film in the display panel of FIG.

13 is a diagram showing an example of a drive circuit for driving the display panel of FIG.

FIG. 14 is a schematic plan view of an electron source in a ladder arrangement.

FIG. 15 is a schematic configuration diagram of a display panel used in the image forming apparatus of the present invention using an electron source in a ladder arrangement.

16 is a schematic plan view showing an electron source in Example 5. FIG.

17 is a cross-sectional view taken along the line A-A ′ in FIG.

FIG. 18 is a diagram showing a manufacturing procedure of the electron source in the fifth embodiment.

FIG. 19 is a diagram showing a manufacturing procedure of the electron source in the fifth embodiment.

FIG. 20 is a block diagram illustrating an image forming apparatus according to a sixth embodiment.

[Explanation of symbols]

 DESCRIPTION OF SYMBOLS 1 Base 2 Electron emission part 3 Conductive film 4,5 Element electrode 6 Crack 7 Resistor film 21 Step forming member 50 Ammeter 51 for measuring element current If 51 Power supply 52 Ammeter 53 for measuring emission current Ie High-voltage power supply 54 Anode electrode 55 Vacuum device 56 Exhaust pump 102 X-direction wiring (lower wiring) 103 Y-direction wiring (upper 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 118 Envelope 121 Black conductive material 122 Phosphor 151 Interlayer insulating layer 152 Contact hole 153 Cr layer 201 Display panel 202 Scanning circuit 203 Control circuit 204 Shift register 205 Line memory 206 Sync signal separation circuit 207 Modulation signal generation Bowl 3 1 display panel 302 grid electrode 303 opening 304 common wiring 16100 display panel 16101 drive circuit 16102 display controller 16103 multiplexer 16104 decoder 16105 input / output interface circuit 16106 CPU 16107 image generation circuit 16108 image memory interface circuit 16109 image memory interface circuit 16110 image memory interface circuit 16111 Image input interface circuit 16112 TV signal receiving circuit 16113 TV signal receiving circuit 16114 Input unit

Claims (29)

[Claims] 1. In an electron-emitting device having a conductive film having an electron-emitting portion between electrodes, a resistor film that defines a potential distribution near the electron-emitting portion by a potential drop above or below the conductive film. An electron-emitting device having: 2. The electron-emitting device according to claim 1, wherein the conductive film is a metal or a metal oxide. 3. The electron-emitting device according to claim 1, wherein the conductive film is a fine particle film. 4. The electron-emitting device according to claim 1, wherein the electron-emitting portion has conductive fine particles. 5. The electron emitting portion is formed by a forming process, and a stabilizing process for applying a voltage to the electron emitting device under a vacuum degree higher than that of the forming process is performed. Either electron-emitting device. 6. The activation treatment for applying a voltage to the electron-emitting device in the presence of an organic substance is performed.
4. An electron-emitting device according to any one of 4 to 4. 7. The electron-emitting portion is formed by a forming process, and is subjected to a stabilizing process of applying a voltage to the electron-emitting device under a higher vacuum degree than the forming process and the activating process. Item 6. An electron-emitting device according to item 6. 8. The electron-emitting device according to claim 1, wherein the device electrodes are of a flat type formed on the same surface. 9. The vertical type in which the device electrodes are vertically positioned with an insulating layer interposed therebetween, and a conductive film including an electron emitting portion is formed on a side surface of the insulating layer.
Either electron-emitting device. 10. The electron-emitting device according to claim 1, wherein the electron-emitting device is a surface conduction electron-emitting device. 11. A device electrode is formed on a substrate, and
It has a step of forming a conductive film that connects the device electrodes, a forming step of forming an electron emission portion in the conductive film, and a step of forming a resistor film on or below the conductive film. And a method for manufacturing an electron-emitting device. 12. The method of manufacturing an electron-emitting device according to claim 11, further comprising a stabilizing process of applying a voltage to the electron-emitting device under a vacuum degree higher than that of the forming process after the forming process. 13. The method of manufacturing an electron-emitting device according to claim 11, further comprising an activation process of applying a voltage to the electron-emitting device in the presence of an organic substance after the forming process. 14. The method of manufacturing an electron-emitting device according to claim 13, further comprising a stabilizing process of applying a voltage to the electron-emitting device under a higher vacuum than the forming process and the activating process after the activation process. Method. 15. The method of manufacturing an electron-emitting device according to claim 11, wherein the electron-emitting device is a surface conduction electron-emitting device. 16. A method of manufacturing an electron source having a plurality of electron-emitting devices, the method comprising: forming a plurality of pairs of device electrodes on a substrate; and forming a conductive film for connecting the device electrodes of each pair. A method of manufacturing an electron source, comprising: a forming step of forming an electron emitting portion on each conductive film; and a step of forming a resistor film on or below each conductive film. 17. The method of manufacturing an electron source according to claim 16, further comprising a stabilizing step of applying a voltage to the electron-emitting device under a higher vacuum degree than the forming step after the forming step. 18. The method of manufacturing an electron source according to claim 16, further comprising an activation step of applying a voltage to each electron-emitting device in the presence of an organic substance after the forming step. 19. The manufacturing of an electron source according to claim 18, further comprising a stabilizing step of applying a voltage to each electron-emitting device under a higher vacuum degree than the forming step and the activating step after the activating step. Method. 20. The method of manufacturing an electron source according to claim 16, wherein the electron-emitting device is a surface conduction electron-emitting device. 21. An electron source manufactured by the method according to claim 16. 22. The electron source according to claim 21, wherein the electron-emitting device is of a flat type in which the device electrodes are formed on the same surface. 23. The electron-emitting device is of a vertical type in which its device electrodes are located above and below an insulating layer and a conductive film including an electron-emitting portion is formed on a side surface of the insulating layer. 22. The electron source of claim 21. 24. At least one device row in which a plurality of electron-emitting devices are arranged is provided, and wirings for driving each electron-emitting device are arranged in a matrix. That electron source. 25. At least one device row in which a plurality of electron-emitting devices are arranged is provided, and wirings for driving the respective electron-emitting devices are arranged in a ladder shape. Either electron source. 26. An image forming apparatus, comprising: the electron source according to claim 21; and an image forming member that forms an image by irradiation of an electron beam from the electron source. 27. An electron source according to any one of claims 21 to 25, a modulation unit that modulates an electron beam emitted from the electron source according to an information signal, and an image is formed by irradiating the electron beam from the electron source. An image forming apparatus having an image forming member to be formed. 28. A method of manufacturing an image forming apparatus, characterized in that the electron source according to any one of claims 21 to 25 is combined with an image forming member that forms an image by irradiation of an electron beam from the electron source. 29. An electron source according to any one of claims 21 to 25, a modulation means for modulating an electron beam emitted from the electron source according to an information signal, and an image is formed by irradiating the electron beam from the electron source. An image forming apparatus manufacturing method, characterized in that an image forming member to be formed is combined.