Appeal No. 2006-0374
Application No. 10/120,511
process, wherein the hydrogenation process-treated and nitrogen-
infusion tip has a reduced atomic concentration of silicon and
oxygen relative to the atomic concentration of the native oxide-
containing tip. Further details of this appealed subject matter
are set forth in representative independent claim 1 which reads
as follows:
1. A method of treating at least one flat panel display
current emitter, said method comprising:
a) exposing a native oxide-containing tip of said at least
one current emitter to a hydrogenation process comprising plasma
enhanced chemical vapor deposition conducted in the presence of a
silane gas in a reaction chamber, wherein said plasma enhanced
chemical vapor deposition process is conducted with a silane gas
flow rate of about 1000 sccm, an RF power of about 200-300 watts,
a chamber pressure of about 1200 mtorr, and a deposition period
of about 5 to 10 minutes; and
b) exposing said hydrogenation process-treated tip of the
at least one current emitter to a nitrogen infusion process,
wherein said hydrogenation process-treated and nitrogen-
infused tip has a reduced atomic concentration of silicon and
oxygen relative to the atomic concentration of said native oxide-
containing tip.
The references set forth below are relied upon by the
examiner as evidence of obviousness:
Maa 4,411,734 Oct. 25, 1983
Shimbo 4,624,737 Nov. 25, 1986
Doan et al. (Doan) 5,186,670 Feb. 16, 1993
MacDonald et al. 5,199,917 Apr. 6, 1993
(MacDonald)
Neukermans 5,658,710 Aug. 19, 1997
Miyamoto 5,747,384 May 5, 1998
Cathey et al. (Cathey) 5,853,492 Dec. 29, 1998
Iyer et al. (Iyer) 5,917,213 Jun. 29, 1999
-2-
Page: Previous 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 Next
Last modified: November 3, 2007