Laser engineered nano electron emitters for Field Emission Display technology

The flat panel display industry is one of the most important technologies in today's market. They continue to evolve at an amazing pace with a huge market of some $100bn. Some well-established technologies, such as liquid crystal displays (LCDs) and plasma display panels (PDPs) have reached new milestones in size, price, and resolution. Upcoming technologies, such as organic light-emitting diode (OLED) displays are making inroads into the dominance of established technologies. 

However, none have yet achieved the resolution, wide viewing angle and high luminance of a cathode ray tube. This is where flat panel displays based on field emission displays pave the way forward. Novel materials have been used for field emission, such as metal-tips, diamond-like-carbon and also carbon nanotubes. Unfortunately all of these require new manufacturing process and systems preventing manufacturers from making the technology commercially viable. The holy-grail for field emission displays is to use existing manufacturing processes and materials. Field emission from silicon Spindt-tips usually involve complex photolithography process, thereby making the technology expensive to be commercially viable. 

Preliminary research in using laser annealed planar silicon cold cathode emitters has shown that planar silicon has the potential to become the desired material for field emission displays. 

About Dr. M.Z.Shaikh :

Dr. M.Z.Shaikh obtained his M.E. and Ph.D. from University of Dundee, UK., where he worked besides University of Stuttgart, (Germany) and Quantum Filament Technologies, (UK) before joining Terna Engineering College. Dr. Shaikh won Knowledge Transfer Partnership Award, UK (2005-2007) and Marie Curie Early Stage Researcher Award, Netherlands (2004).