Femtosecond laser processing and field emission properties of the FEAs on single crystal GdB6 (100) surface

Abstract

The single crystal GdB6 were prepared by optical zone melting method. Moreover, using the femtosecond laser micromachining technology processed the field-emission tip arrays (FEAs) on the (100) surface of single crystal GdB6. The single crystal quality, field emission of the FEAs, as well as the electronic structure of single crystal GdB6 are systematically characterized. The quality of single crystal is good. The curvature radius of the produced FEAs with uniform morphology and undamaged crystal surface structure are about 0.5 μm. The FEAs showed good field emission performance, which the turn-on electric field of the FEAs is 2.6 V/μm with a field emission current of 0.46 A/cm2 at 7.3 V/μm and the emission current has high stability. The calculation electronic structure of GdB6 show that the 5d electron of Gd determines the electronic state of excellent emission performance. The high electric field will greatly decrease the surface barrier and work function of GdB6, according with the field emission theory.