Thermal field emission behavior of single walled carbon nanotubes

Due to their unique electronic and structural properties, carbon nanotubes have attracted substantial attention as field emitters in vacuum microelectronics. Field emission from carbon nanotubes with high current densities at low applied electric fields has been demonstrated by several groups. The mechanism behind the field emission remains unclear. Not only are most samples mixtures of single-walled and multi-walled nanotubes with widely varying electrical properties, but the emission behavior reported for nanotubes varies widely. To get a better perspective on these basic issues, we studied the thermal field emission characteristics of single walled carbon nanotubes (SWNT) using a atomic resolution field emission microscope (FEM).