Controlled density growth of carbon nanotubes and its improvement on field emission properties

Abstract

The density distribution of the CNTs is one of the crucial parameters for the field emission property of CNTs.We use an inactive thin film layer that was deposited on the catalyst to effectively control the density of the CNTs. The results showed the improved field emission property could be obtained with a thin SiO layer on the catalyst layer as the precursor. For the 3.5 nm Fe and 3.5 nm SiO on 3.5 nm Fe as the catalyst, the turn-on field can be reduced from 3.7 V/ mu m. to 2.2 V/ mu m and the field emission current density increased from 2.6x 10(-8) A/cm(2) to 2.4x 10(-4) A/cm(2) when the applied field was 4 V/mu m. The extremely low turn-on field of 1.3 V/ mu m was also discovered for the CNTs grown with the precursor contained 1.5 nm SiO on 1.5 nm Fe; the extremely high emission current density of 4x 10(-2) A/cm(2) was also achieved under the low electric field of 3.5 V/ mu m.