by etching the material of layer 18 if an etchant is employed to remove the material of layer 18 the etchant is preferably selective for the material of layer 18 over the dielectric material of layer 16 as substantially all of layer 18 is removed from field emission array 10 a wet etch process and wet etchants are preferably employed as the removal of layer 18 may not be selective and wet etchants typically exhibit greater selectivity than comparable dry etchants of course dry etchants may also be employed after layer 18 has been substantially removed from field emission array 10 any etchants that were employed may be removed from field emission array 10 by known processes such as by washing field emission array 10 fig6 a shows that any conductive paths 17 that extend into or through layer 18 may be removed substantially to an upper surface of layer 16 during the substantial removal of layer 18 from field emission array 10 with reference to fig7 another layer 22 of dielectric material may be disposed over layer 16 layer 22 is also referred to herein as a third layer or as a second dielectric layer the regions of layer 22 that are disposed substantially over each emitter tip 14 may protrude from the substantially planar surface of layer 22 the dielectric material of layer 22 which is also referred to herein as a second dielectric material may be substantially the same material as the dielectric material of layer 16 or a different type of dielectric material than that of layer 16 preferably layer 16 and layer 22 have a combined thickness that imparts field emission array 10 with substantially a desired dielectric material thickness the relative thicknesses of layer 16 and layer 22.