Suppressed Screening Effects in Curvilinear Tetrahedral Diamond Field Emitter Arrays Fabricated on Anodic Aluminum Oxide

Abstract

Curvilineary tetrahedral diamond arrays of nano-tip with different pitches are firstly fabricated and the suppressed screening effects are also investigated. The curvilinear tetrahedral diamond arrays are fabricated by hot-filament chemical vapor deposition (HFCVD) on anodic aluminum oxide (AAO) template. The AAO template is fabricated by hard anodization. The diamond nano-particles are adhered onto the barrier layer of AAO template by Polyethylenimine pretreatment to increase the nucleation density of diamond. The diamond film is then deposited on the barrier layer of AAO by HFCVD. Curvilinear tetrahedral diamond arrays of nano-tip are developed after the removal of AAO template by wet chemical etching. The field emission effects of different diamond nano-tip arrays are measured by field emission meter. The morphology and quality of curvilinear tetrahedral diamond nano-tip array are examined by scanning electron microscopy and Raman spectroscopy, respectively. Innovative curvilinear tetrahedral structures are obtained successfully with the tip radius of 15 nm-30 nm, and the height of 100 nm-200 nm at different pitches from 50 nm to 300 nm. As a result, the lowest turn-on electric field of 5.4 V/μm and the highest field emission current density of 8.4 μA/cm2 can be obtained at the smallest pitch-height ratio of 0.25-1 without screening effect.