A comparative study of electron emission characteristics of silicon tip arrays with and without amorphous diamond coating

Details are given of experiments carried out to compare the field electron emission characteristics of single crystal silicon tip arrays with and without amorphous diamond coating. The coatings on the tip arrays were prepared using filtered vacuum arc plasma deposition technique. The morphology of the coating was studied in a scanning electron microscope. An anode probe technique was employed to measure the I-V characteristics, stability and turn-on fields of the tip-array emitters before and after coating. It has been found that the coating has effects not only on enhancing emission, but also stabilizing it. The physical reason for these effects is discussed.