Enhanced field emission properties from carbon nanotube emitters grown on NiCr alloy surfaces with grain boundary effect

In this paper, we demonstrate enhanced field emission properties from MWNT emitters grown directly on the 80/20 NiCr alloy surface due to the grain boundary effect. The elemental segregation was clearly demonstrated by AES elemental mapping, where Cr and O surface segregation inhibited MWNT growth. The potential for this simple process is that it may be employed for fabricating CNT emitters without requiring any metal deposition step nor microlithography 3. process in order to minimize the field screening effect.