Field electron emission behavior of individual multiwalled carbon nanotubes (MWNTs), that are elements of a vertically aligned array grown on a Si wafer, were analyzed with a scanning anode field emission microscope. The electron emission of each MWNT followed the conventional Fowler–Nordheim field emission mechanism after their apexes were freed from the erratic adsorption species using a conditioning process at room temperature. The conditioning process led to stable emission currents and reduced their variations ΔI/I to less than 30% between different MWNTs of the array. This opens the possibility for using MWNTs in an array as independent electron sources for massively parallel microguns.

Topics
Semiconductors, Surface collisions, Nanotubes, Electron sources, Field emission microscopy
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