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Enhanced and stable electron emission of carbon nanotube emitter arrays by post-growth hydrofluoric acid treatment

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Abstract

Carbon nanotubes (CNT) have been highlighted as possible candidates for field-emission emitters and vacuum nanoelectronic devices. In this article, we studied the effect of acid treatment of CNTs on field emission from carbon nanotube field emitter arrays (FEAs), grown using the resist-assisted patterning process (RAP). The emission current densities of as grown CNT-FEAs and those which were later immersed in hydrofluoric acid (HF) for 20 s, were 19 μA/cm2 and 7.0 mA/cm2, respectively, when measured at an anode field of 9.2 V/μm. Hence, the emission current densities after HF treatment are 300 times larger than those of as grown CNT-FEAs. Also, it was observed that a very stable electron emission current was obtained after stressing the CNTs with an electric field of 9.2 V/μm for 800 min in dc-mode, where the emission current non-uniformity was 0.13%. The enhancement in electron emission after HF treatment appears to be due to the effect of fluorine bonding. Also, the electron emission characteristics and structural improvement of CNT-FEAs after HF treatment are discussed.

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Acknowledgment

This work was supported by the Seoul Research and Business Development program (Grant No. CR070054). And authors would like to thank Dr. G. P. Kennedy for kind discussion regarding manuscript correction.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Department of Physics and Advanced Display Research Center, Kyung Hee University, Seoul, 130-701, South Korea

    Ki Seo Kim

  2. Department of Information Display and Advanced Display Research Center, Kyung Hee University, Seoul, 130-701, South Korea

    Je Hwang Ryu, Chang Seok Lee, Jin Jang & Kyu Chang Park

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  1. Ki Seo Kim
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  2. Je Hwang Ryu
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  3. Chang Seok Lee
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  4. Jin Jang
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  5. Kyu Chang Park
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Correspondence to Kyu Chang Park.

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Kim, K.S., Ryu, J.H., Lee, C.S. et al. Enhanced and stable electron emission of carbon nanotube emitter arrays by post-growth hydrofluoric acid treatment. J Mater Sci: Mater Electron 20 (Suppl 1), 120–124 (2009). https://doi.org/10.1007/s10854-007-9463-6

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