Fabrication of GaN field emitter arrays by selective area growth technique

Selective area growth technique has been used to fabricate field emitter arrays of GaN. Uniform micro-sized hexagonal pyramids of Si-doped GaN were obtained on dot-patterned GaN(0001)/sapphire substrates using metalorganic vapor phase epitaxy at atmospheric pressure, and the tip radius of the pyramids was less than 100 nm. Measurement of the emission was performed at the pressure of 10−7 Pa range. The Fowler–Nordheim plot obtained from current–voltage characteristics shows a linear relationship, indicating that the emitted current is apparently due to field emission.