Energy Spread of Field Emission Electrons from Single Pentagons in Individual Multi-Walled Carbon Nanotubes

Abstract

We investigated the dependence of tip radius on the field emission energy spread of electrons emitted from clean single pentagons in individual multi-walled carbon nanotubes (MWNTs) in a wide range of total emission currents (10–2000 nA). We found that the full width at half maximum of the field emission energy distribution decreases in inverse proportion to the involution of the radius of curvature at a constant total emission current. This is because as the radius of curvature increases, the space between adjoining pentagons becomes wider, and therefore the stochastic Coulomb interactions between electrons emitted from adjoining pentagons become weaker. The full widths at half maximum of the field emission energy distributions of MWNTs with tip radii of 1.8–45.0 nm were 0.38–0.60 eV at a total emission current of 2000 nA.