Study of time responsibility of initial vacuum breakdown in pulsed field electron emission for carbon nanotube

The method has been developed to study initial vacuum breakdown process for individual CNT in pulsed electric-field. The results show that individual CNT can bear higher electric field in impulse current than in direct current (DC), and the initiating breakdown time of CNT decrease exponentially with increasing applied field. The relationship between the initiating breakdown time and the size of CNT has been studied also. The results exhibit that one shorter of CNT could endure higher electric field than one longer and this advantage property will gradually disappear as the field enhanced.