Field emission from products of nanodiamond annealing Original Research Article

Field emission characteristics were measured for the samples produced by controlled annealing of nanodiamonds (ND) leading to the formation of sp2/sp3 composites containing diamond core encapsulated in curved graphitic scales, onion-like carbon, and hollow graphite polyhedrons. The sequential raise in the ND annealing temperature was found to result in no monotonic change of emission threshold value of the products. The experimental data were interpreted using results of quantum-chemical AM1 calculation of density of occupied states of carbon structures.