AVS 46th International Symposium
    Topical Conference on Emerging Opportunities and Issues in Nanotubes and Nanoelectronics Thursday Sessions
       Session NT+NS+EM+MS-ThM

Paper NT+NS+EM+MS-ThM10
Fabrication and Field Emission Properties of Adherent Carbon Nanotube Films

Thursday, October 28, 1999, 11:20 am, Room 6C

Session: Nanotubes: Nanoelectronics and Field Emission
Presenter: C. Bower, University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill
Authors: C. Bower, University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill
W. Zhu, Bell Laboratories, Lucent Technologies
G. Kochanski, Bell Laboratories, Lucent Technologies
S. Jin, Bell Laboratories, Lucent Technologies
O. Zhou, University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill
Correspondent: Click to Email
We report on the fabrication and field emission properties of carbon nanotube films. Films of randomly oriented carbon nanotubes were deposited onto substrates using a variety of techniques. The nanotube films exhibited stable field emission current at low turn-on fields (electric field needed to generate 1 nA of current) and threshold fields (electric field needed to generate 10 mA/cm@super 2@). A single-walled carbon nanotube film with approximately 20% surface coverage showed a turn-on field of 1-1.2 V/µm and a threshold field of 1.3-1.7 V/µm. The emission characteristics deviated from typical Fowler-Nordheim behavior at high current densities. The nanotube films were capable of generating large current densities (> 4 A/cm@super 2@). The emission properties were found to be stable over several days of emitting at 10 mA/cm@super 2@. The emission site density of the films was measured to be 10@super 4@-10@super 5@ sites/cm@super 2@ and the emission patterns were studied.