FIELD EMITTER ARRAYS APPLIED TO VACUUM FLUORESCENT DISPLAY

In this paper we describe recent progress in the development of a thin vacuum-fluorescent display utilizing a matrix-addressable array of groups of Spindt-type field-emission cathodes1,2. The array consists of a matrix having 100 lines/inch in one direction and 300 lines/inch in the other. Each picture element (pixel) in the matrix is made up of an array of emitter tips sharing a common, individually addressable base electrode (one of the 100 lines) and three separately addressable control or gate electrodes in the orthogonal direction (one for each of the basic colors : red, green, blue). Each color element has about 100 emitter tips. The current emitted from the array is averaged over the 100 tips, and good uniformity of emission from color element to color element and pixel to pixel can be obtained, because of the averaging effect