An initiation mechanism of thermal instability of a metal-diamond-vacuum field emission regime

An analysis is carried out of the physical origin of thermal instability that can trigger a catastrophic vacuum breakdown event in vacuum microelectronic devices based on flat diamond emitters. The temperature rise in a diamond film will enhance internal field emission across metal-diamond interface. This effect can lead to a regenerative process that can initiate a breakdown event at temperature lower than the melting point of an emitter. A set of equations has been developed. These theoretical findings are successfully applied to explain the instability of field emission from the nondoped diamond films. (C) 1999 American Institute of Physics. [S0003-6951(99)01942-7].