Low turn-on field nanodiamond conic field emitter

Field emission properties of individual nanocrystalline diamond cones with higher sp2 content were investigated using a double-probe scanning electron microscope system. The nanodiamond cones were fabricated utilizing gray-scale patterns with a focused-ion-beam (FIB) system. The as-formed nanocones with slicing number of 150 have high content of sp2 amorphous carbon surfaces and thus show a high emission current up to 54μA at an applied voltage of 10V. In addition, twice higher emission current was achieved by UV illumination under even lower turn-on field (1.1V/μm), which benefits the realization of high performance cold cathode field emitters and UV detectors using such nanostructures.