NANO MODIFICATION OF THE W(100)/ZrO ELECTRON EMITTER TIP USING REACTIVE ION ETCHING

The W(100)/ZrO electron emitter tip is typically prepared from a tungsten single-crystal shaft of a diameter of 125 mu m using electrochemical anodic etching. In order to prepare an emitter for e-beam writer with a shaped beam it is desirable to etch the tip with a radius around 100 nm. Despite the anodic etching is precisely controlled using dedicated software, the desired final form shape of the emitter tip is not achieved in every case. The correcting anodic etching is not possible due to the technology principle of the etching itself. We present in this contribution the procedure that modifies/repairs the tungsten tip shape in a nanoscale region using a reactive ion etching (RIE) in CF4 + O-2 gaseous mix in a barrel type reactor at the radio frequency of 13,56 MHz and the working pressure of 1000 Pa. The change of the geometry after the RIE process is checked using a high resolution scanning electron microscope. The influence of the tip modification of the activated thermal-field W(100)/ZrO electron emitter on its emission characteristics is also presented.