Abstract The paper presents a new study of correlation between morphology of thin carbon films deposited on Si substrates, their electronic properties and capability of cold electron emission in electric field with macroscopic magnitude of the order of 1 V/μm. Comparative experiments have demonstrated that substrate parameters have little, if any, direct effect on emission properties of the films: the observed variations of the emission threshold field value in the range from several percent up to two times depending on the substrate species was attributed to substrate-orientation-sensitive mechanism of the film growth leading to notable difference in topography of the compared films (indirect effect). Tunneling spectroscopy study showed that the films with the best emission properties comprise sp2 carbon islands (or carbon dots, CDs) having electron systems separated from each other and from the substrate. This conclusion has been supported by the presence of a photoluminescence component in Raman spectra of the emissive films, which is often associated with electron confinement effects in CDs. In combination, the new experimental data witness in favor of hot-electron mechanism of low-threshold electron emission from the studied films.

中文翻译：

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薄碳膜：形态与场发射能力之间的相关性

摘要 本文提出了一项新的研究，研究了沉积在 Si 衬底上的薄碳膜的形貌、它们的电子特性和冷电子发射能力之间的相关性，宏观量级为 1 V/μm。对比实验表明，基板参数对薄膜的发射特性几乎没有直接影响：根据基板种类，观察到的发射阈值场值在几个百分比到两倍的范围内变化归因于基板- 薄膜生长的取向敏感机制导致比较薄膜的形貌显着差异（间接效应）。隧道光谱研究表明，具有最佳发射特性的薄膜包含 sp2 碳岛（或碳点、CD）具有彼此分离并与基板分离的电子系统。这一结论得到了发光薄膜拉曼光谱中光致发光成分的支持，这通常与 CD 中的电子限制效应有关。结合起来，新的实验数据证明了所研究薄膜的低阈值电子发射的热电子机制。