A Field Emission Light Source Using Reflective Metal Groove Anode and Long Narrow Stripe Cathode

A novel reflective metal anode with different groove structures and a set of parallel long narrow stripe Carbon nanotube (CNT) cathodes to fabricate a 7 inches field emission backlight unit (CNT-FEBLU) has been carried out in this paper. In comparison with a simple diode structure, which has the same stripe cathode unit with screen printing phosphor layer on ITO glass surface as the anode, the reflective metal anode has some advantages such as sustaining high field emission current, no unexpected arcing, and high illumination and uniformity without phosphor degradation. The results show that a reflective metal anode not only conducts the residual charges and heat from the phosphor surface effectively, but also reflects the light to one side of the panel through the cathode end and exhibits high illumination without obvious obstacle by the narrow stripe cathodes. The luminance of the reflective metal groove anode we proposed is 11530 cd/m2, with the emission current density of 1.52 mA/cm2 under the electric field about 1.07 V/μm.