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Parametrically Optimized Carbon Nanotube-Coated Cold Cathode Spindt Arrays

Published version
Peer-reviewed

Type

Article

Change log

Authors

Yuan, X 
Cole, MT 
Zhang, Y 
Wu, J 
Milne, WI 

Abstract

Here, we investigate, through parametrically optimized macroscale simulations, the field electron emission from arrays of carbon nanotube (CNT)-coated Spindts towards the development of an emerging class of novel vacuum electron devices. The present study builds on empirical data gleaned from our recent experimental findings on the room temperature electron emission from large area CNT electron sources. We determine the field emission current of the present microstructures directly using particle in cell (PIC) software and present a new CNT cold cathode array variant which has been geometrically optimized to provide maximal emission current density, with current densities of up to 11.5 A/cm2 at low operational electric fields of 5.0 V/μm.

Description

Keywords

carbon nanotube, cold cathode, field emission, electron gun

Journal Title

Nanomaterials

Conference Name

Journal ISSN

2079-4991
2079-4991

Volume Title

7

Publisher

MDPI
Sponsorship
This work was supported by the National Basic Research Program of China (No. 2013CB933603) and the National Natural Science Foundation of China (No. U1134006, 61101041). Matthew T. Cole thanks the Oppenheimer Trust, Cambridge University, for generous financial support and a Presidential International Fellowship, Chinese Academy of Sciences.