Stability consideration of metal–diamond–vacuum micro-emission regimes

Details are given of both experimental and theoretical studies of the vacuum breakdown phenomena associated with field emission from a metal–diamond–vacuum micro-emission regime. Real-time recording in conjunction with the transparent anode imaging technique was employed to study the process of the breakdown event. It was found that such an event can be cathode initiated due to the thermal heating in diamond film emitter. The theoretical study shows that a new mechanism is responsible for thermal instability of a channel: the effect of temperature rise of the channel on field emission from substrates. The results calculated based on the new theory are qualitatively consistent with the experimental findings.