Long-term stability of a horizontally-aligned carbon nanotube field emission cathode coated with a metallic glass thin film

Outstanding field emission properties of wet-processed titanium dioxide coated carbon nanotube based field emission devices

“…[1][2][3][4][5] To improve the FE performance of CNT cathodes, several techniques of controlling the emitter morphology have been developed, including optimization of the CNT density aiming at reduction of the field-screening effect, 12 increase of the emitter sharpness to achieve high electric field enhancement factor, 13,14 and preparation of vertically aligned CNT arrays to increase the number of effective emission tips. [15][16][17] On the other hand, composite CNT cathodes by doping or attaching CNTs with metal nanoparticles or metal oxide thin films have been demonstrated to greatly improve the FE performance. [18][19][20][21][22][23][24][25][26][27][28] However, metal nanoparticles doped CNTs generally possess weak electron emission stability due to the chemical activity and poor oxygen resistance of metal nanoparticles.…”

“…28 However, the composite film still possessed a high E to of 0.8 V lm À1 (at 1 lA cm À2 ) maybe due to the poor electronic conductivity in the presence of the coated metal oxide layer. In addition, some composite films were deposited using the sputtering method, 17,18,23,27 which may give the plasma damage on the CNT surface, resulting in weak adhesion between the CNT film and the substrate, and generate poor emission stability. 29 In this letter, we reported a deposition of TiO 2 gel on the surface of screen-printed CNT films by a simple wet process to form CNT/TiO 2 composite films as an alternative choice for electron emitters.…”