Enhanced Field Emission of Single-Wall Carbon Nanotube Cathode Prepared by Screen Printing with a Silver Paste Buffer Layer

Ruirui Jiang; Jianlong Liu; Kaiqiang Yang; Jing Zhao; Baoqing Zeng

doi:10.3390/nano12010165

Nanomaterials (Jan 2022)

Enhanced Field Emission of Single-Wall Carbon Nanotube Cathode Prepared by Screen Printing with a Silver Paste Buffer Layer

Ruirui Jiang,
Jianlong Liu,
Kaiqiang Yang,
Jing Zhao,
Baoqing Zeng

Affiliations

Ruirui Jiang: National Key Laboratory of Science and Technology on Vacuum Electronics, School of Electronic Science and Engineering, University of Electronic Science and Technology of China, Chengdu 610051, China
Jianlong Liu: National Key Laboratory of Science and Technology on Vacuum Electronics, School of Electronic Science and Engineering, University of Electronic Science and Technology of China, Chengdu 610051, China
Kaiqiang Yang: National Key Laboratory of Science and Technology on Vacuum Electronics, School of Electronic Science and Engineering, University of Electronic Science and Technology of China, Chengdu 610051, China
Jing Zhao: National Key Laboratory of Science and Technology on Vacuum Electronics, School of Electronic Science and Engineering, University of Electronic Science and Technology of China, Chengdu 610051, China
Baoqing Zeng: National Key Laboratory of Science and Technology on Vacuum Electronics, School of Electronic Science and Engineering, University of Electronic Science and Technology of China, Chengdu 610051, China

DOI: https://doi.org/10.3390/nano12010165
Journal volume & issue: Vol. 12, no. 1
p. 165

Abstract

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A high emission current with relatively low operating voltage is critical for field emission cathodes in vacuum electronic devices (VEDs). This paper studied the field emission performance of single-wall carbon nanotube (SWCNT) cold cathodes prepared by screen printing with a silver paste buffer layer. The buffer layer can both enforce the adhesion between the SWCNTs and substrate, and decrease their contact resistance, so as to increase emission current. Compared with paste mixing CNTs and screen printed cathodes, the buffer layer can avoid excessive wrapping of CNTs in the silver slurry and increase effective emission area to reduce the operating voltage. The experimental results show that the turn-on field of the screen-printed SWCNT cathodes is 0.9 V/μm, which is lower than that of electrophoretic SWCNT cathodes at 2.0 V/μm. Meanwhile, the maximum emission current of the screen-printed SWCNT cathodes reaches 5.55 mA at DC mode and reaches 10.4 mA at pulse mode, which is an order magnitude higher than that of electrophoretic SWCNTs emitters. This study also shows the application insight of small or medium-power VEDs.

Published in Nanomaterials

ISSN: 2079-4991 (Online)
Publisher: MDPI AG
Country of publisher: Switzerland
LCC subjects: Science: Chemistry
Website: https://www.mdpi.com/journal/nanomaterials

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