Electron emission of laser-structured carbon nanowalls on Si and stainless steel substrates

Carbon nanowalls (CNWs) were fabricated on Si and stainless steel substrates by inductively coupled plasma enhanced chemical vapor deposition. Aluminum acetylacetonate was used as metalorganic precursor in the presence of Ar without catalyst. Structuring of the CNW layers was successfully performed with a pulsed power laser. The resulting cathodes exhibited fairly aligned and efficient field emission (FE) at onset fields for 1 nA of 10-20 V/μm. Local FE measurements of selected CNW patches revealed promising maximum current values up to about 100 μA.