Abstract Vacuum micro/nano-electronics can greatly benefit from the improved emission current density and temporal stability of the electron beam due to the morphological control and direct contact of cold field-emitters on a conducting substrate. In this work, high-performance vertically aligned carbon nanotube (VACNT) pillar-based field-emitter arrays (VACNT-P-FEAs) were synthesized directly on stainless-steel (SS) via plasma-enhanced chemical vapor deposition. Nanosphere lithography was employed to limit the growth sites of VACNTs and form VACNT-P-FEAs of different sizes on the SS substrate. The field emission (FE) properties of the VACNT-P-FEAs were dependent on the size of the pillar emitters. Remarkable FE properties, such as low turn-on electric field (ETo = 1.57 V/μm), low threshold electric field (ETh = 2.94 V/μm), high field enhancement factor (β = 4977), and high emission current density (∼33 mA/cm2 at a field of 4 V/μm) were observed from the VACNT-P-FEAs grown using polystyrene microspheres (450 nm diameter) for lithography. The excellent FE performance can be ascribed to the inherent properties of the sample, such as the high conductivity of the SS substrate, low contact resistance between the SS substrate and VACNTs, the suitable number of active VACNT pillar field-emitters, and the reduced screening effect between the VACNT pillars.

中文翻译：

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在不锈钢上直接合成垂直排列的碳纳米管微柱及其优异的场发射性能

摘要 由于冷场发射器在导电基板上的形态控制和直接接触，真空微/纳米电子学可以极大地受益于电子束发射电流密度和时间稳定性的提高。在这项工作中，通过等离子体增强化学气相沉积直接在不锈钢 (SS) 上合成了高性能垂直排列的碳纳米管 (VACNT) 柱基场发射器阵列 (VACNT-P-FEA)。纳米球光刻用于限制 VACNT 的生长位点，并在 SS 基板上形成不同尺寸的 VACNT-P-FEA。VACNT-P-FEA 的场发射 (FE) 特性取决于柱状发射器的尺寸。卓越的FE特性，如低开启电场（ETo = 1.57 V/μm）、低阈值电场（ETh = 2.94 V/μm），从使用聚苯乙烯微球（直径为 450 nm）生长的 VACNT-P-FEA 用于光刻，观察到高场增强因子（β = 4977）和高发射电流密度（~33 mA/cm2，场为 4 V/μm） . 优异的 FE 性能可归因于样品的固有特性，例如 SS 基板的高导电性、SS 基板与 VACNT 之间的低接触电阻、适当数量的有源 VACNT 柱状场发射器以及减少的屏蔽VACNT 支柱之间的效果。