Fabrication of DLC-coated field emitter triode using aluminum parting layer

Coating silicon field emitter tips with a thin film of diamond-like carbon (DLC) seems to be a promising way to improve the performance of silicon emitter tips by enhancing the thermal conductivity and the hardness. If one deposits a DLC film onto the gated silicon emitter; DLC will be coated on the side wall of an insulating layer to increase the leakage current to the gate. Using an aluminum sacrificial layer on the side wall of an insulating layer before coating DLC film, we could coat a DLC film on the tips without contaminating the side wall. I-V measurement of the DLC-coated silicon triode showed that the leakage current to the gate was 2.6% of the anode current.