Improvement of the field-emission characteristics of a cold cathode with nano particles

The field-emission cathode has potential application in the field emission display panels, high frequency amplifiers, X-ray sources, cathodoluminescent light sources. Many research works have been focused on the improvement of field-emission performance of a carbon nanotube cathode. A few methods, such as adhesive taping, soft rubber rolling, mechanical rubbing, plasma etching, and laser irradiating, have been proposed to get large emission current and good emission uniformity. In this paper, a new structure of the cold cathode is proposed. A metal layer is deposited on a cathode substrate as the cathode electrode. The field emitters, such as carbon nanotubes, ZnO nanopods, and etc., are grown on the cathode electrode. Some nano particles with high conductivity are distributed around the cathode electrode by spraying or printing. The result shows the distribution of electric field between a field-emission diode.