Controlled Vacuum Breakdown in Carbon Nanotube Field Emission

We report a physical mechanism of controlling vacuum breakdown in field emission from carbon nanotubes (CNTs). The thermal evaporation or runaway of CNT emitters is considered to be responsible for destructive vacuum breakdowns due to an overcurrent through electronically shorted circuits, where misaligned or irregularly long CNT emitters were found. The occurrence of the destructive breakdown, however, could be under control after an electrical treatment using soft breakdowns. Significant improvements of field emission stability and uniformity were achieved by optimally controlled soft breakdowns, which eliminated the short circuits and recovered the field emission with no destruction of electrodes.