Enhanced field emission properties of carbon nanotube bundles confined in SiO 2 pits

It has been widely reported that carbon nanotubes (CNTs) exhibit superior field emission (FE) properties due to their high aspect ratios and unique structural properties. Among the various types of CNTs, random growth CNTs exhibit promising FE properties due to their reduced inter-tube screening effect. However, growing random growth CNTs on individual catalyst islands often results in spread out CNT bundles, which reduces overall field enhancement. In this study, significant improvement in FE properties in CNT bundles is demonstrated by confining them in microfabricated SiO 2 pits. Growing CNT bundles in narrow (0.5 μ m diameter and 2 μ m height) SiO 2 pits achieves FE current density of 1–1.4 A cm −2 , which is much higher than for freestanding CNT bundles (76.9 mA cm −2 ). From the Fowler Nordheim plots, confined CNT bundles show a higher field enhancement factor. This improvement can be attributed to the reduced bundle diameter by SiO 2 pit confinement, which yields bundles with higher aspect ratios. Combining the obtained outcomes, it can be conclusively summarized that confining CNTs in SiO 2 pits yields higher FE current density due to the higher field enhancement of confined CNTs.