Thick Blending-Stacking-Layer Carbon Nanotube Cathode with Improved Stability and Balanced Electron Emission: Design Optimization and Experimental Fabrication

Abstract

A novel carbon nanotube cathode was designed and fabricated on cathode substrate-glass, which mitigated the topical problem of poor electron emission properties of screen-printed carbon nanotube cathodes. The fabrication for the stacking-layer structure of emitter-monolayer/ SiO2-mixing-layer/ bottom-bar-electrode was adopted, and the preparation process of repeated printing + simultaneous sintering was employed. With this production, a higher electron emission current increase and better electron emission characteristics were obtained. When the electric field was increased from 2.199 to 2.877V/mm, the electron emission current was enhanced from the initial 299.7 to 2125.6mA (i.e., by more than seven times), gaining the electron emission increase of 1825.9mA. The fabricated cathode exhibited a large electron emission current and a low turn-on electric field: the electric field required for achieving the electron emission current of 988.2mA was only 2.623V/mm. Moreover, it possessed stable electron emission and high emission current measuring repeatability. The uniform luminescent image with high brightness was realized, which proved that the proposed thick blending-stacking-layer carbon nanotube cathode had a balanced electron emission current.