Abstract
We developed an experimental setup and procedure to investigate improving the electron emission stability in the long-term operation of carbon nanotube (CNT)-based field emission cathodes (FECs) by using Xe plasma processing aging method. To find the optimum plasma processing conditions, we varied the FEC's exposure time, plasma environment, and bias voltage. Plasma processing increased the gate voltage required for a certain number of electron emissions, whereas we confirmed that the emission stability improved and the aging effect of plasma processing. A bias voltage of approximately −15 V and a shorter exposure time were most suitable for plasma processing. Because the number of ion and electron collisions and the collision energies cause a moderate change in the CNT structure with minimal damage to the CNTs, we expect that the proposed plasma processing will improve the lifetime of CNT-based FECs, which is essential if they are to be used as electron emission sources for space propulsion systems.
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