Development of Current Limiter Manufacturing Technology for High Performance Flat Panel Video Displays

Flat-panel video displays based on ultra-small gated field emitters offer the potential to provide higher performance, lower power consumption, wider temperature range, wider viewing angle, and lower cost than the best lighted LCD-based color video displays. For optimum performance, field emitter displays require current limiters to ensure uniformity of luminosity, eliminate emitter failure, protect against shorting defects, and help control overpowering of the phosphor screen. This proposal addresses the development of a unique current limiter structure which has the potential to greatly improve performance of low-cost field emitter-based video displays. In combination with our nanolithography technology for patterning ultra-small, dense emitters, the new current limiter will enable uniform, reliable operation in the 5V control voltage range. Low voltage turn-on facilitates use of very low cost display electronics, as well as enabling lower cost processing of the displays themselves. In this Phase I project we will build and test experimental current limiter devices optimized for 0.15 micron emitters. The device characteristics will be analyzed to determine the best performance devices to be used in a Phase II high performance flat-panel video display design.