Field Emission Properties of Carbon Nanotube Arrays on the Thickness-Controlled Flexible Substrate by the Pattern Transfer Process

Abstract

A technigal with the polydimethylsiloxane (PDMS) solution infiltrated into the SiOx-coated CNTAs has been utilized to directly transfer the CNTAs away from the silicon substrate. The oxide coating layer was utilized to protect the morpholgy of as-grown patterned vertical aligmed carbon nanotube (CNTs) arrays. The high density plasma reactive ions etching (HDP-RIE) system was used to make the CNTs emerge from the surface of the flexible substrate and modify the crystallines of CNTs. After the protecting oxide was HDP-RIE-processed for 8 min, the emission current properties were enhanced to be 1.03 V/mu m and 1.43 V/mu m, respectively, for the turn-on field and the threshold field, as compared with 1.25 V/mu m and 1.59 V/mu m for the as-grown CNTs, accordingly. The Field Emission (FE) enhancement after dry etching could be attributed to the open-ended structures and better crystalline.