Field Emission From Carbon Films Grown by the Cathodic Arc Process

By using the catholic vacuum are deposition process, carbon films with variable sp3/ sp2bonding ratio can be deposited on a variety of substrates at room temperature. The morphology of the films can be varied from the mirror like smooth tetrahedrally bonded carbon (ta-C) films through nanocluster to fibrous type carbon by altering the deposition parameters. This paper reviews the work carried out on Field Emission from such carbon films and compares the results with those on nanocluster films prepared using supersonic cluster beams. Threshold fields as low as 1 V /μ m with emission site densities of up to 104-105/ cm2have been obtained.