The characterization of nitrogen content, diamond-like carbon field emission arrays using a magnetic filtered arc method

Abstract

Uniform and large area pyramid-shape diamond-like carbon (DLC) field emission arrays are successfully deposited using the filtered are deposition (FAD) system. Nitrogen gas serves as the dopant source to deposit the diamond-like carbon films on the inverted pyramid-shape SiO2 substrates. Experimental results indicate that the current-voltage (I-V) value of field emission arrays is closely related to the diamond-like carbon film quality. The amount of N-2 content in the film influences the composition of the diamond-like carbon, sp(2) bonding carbon and graphite. It was found that the sp? bonding carbon content of the diamond-like carbon increases with increasing N-2 doping. With nitrogen doping, the emission anode current of the diamond-like carbon film significantly increases, eventually reaching 142 muA at a voltage of 30 V, at heavily N-doped concentrations (10 seem), when the films reach a high defect density. (C) 2000 Elsevier Science B.V. All rights reserved.