Field Emission Current Stability and Noise Generation Mechanism of Large Aspect Ratio Diamond Nanowires

This paper reports the field emission (FE) current stability of a diamond nanowire (DNW) array. Assembled with a silicon anode with a 1.03 μm gap, the FE properties, as well as the current stability of the DNW cathode, were systematically evaluated in a vacuum test system under different vacuum degrees, current densities, and atmospheres. Experiments demonstrate that lower pressure and current density can improve FE properties and current stability. In addition, compared to air and compressed air, DNWs exhibit higher FE properties and current stability in N2. DNWs achieve a remarkably low turn-on field of 1.65 V/μm and a high current density of 265.38 mA/cm2. Notably, they demonstrate merely 0.70% current fluctuation under test conditions of 1.2 × 10−4 Pa and 0.1 mA/cm2. Additionally, based on the Fowler–Nordheim theory, the change in work function after gas adsorption was analyzed, and the noise generation mechanism was derived from the noise power spectrum. The current exponent is determined as 1.94, while the frequency exponent ranges from 0.92 to 1.32, confirming that the dominant noise mechanism in DNWs arises from surface work function fluctuations due to the adsorption and desorption of residual gas.