Growth of nanocrystalline diamond films for low field electron emission

Nanocrystalline diamond films have been prepared using: a magnetically enha nced RF assisted plasma chemical vapour deposition (CVD) source. Such films show field emission at applied fields below 10 V mu m(-1). Similar results are obtained using methane-hydrogen and methane-nitrogen gas mixtures, sug gesting that the nitrogen promoted enhancement in field emission that has b een observed in high quality diamond films does not occur for nanocrystalli ne layers, The design of the source used is easily scaled up for large area deposition, suggesting that this could be a useful approach for the prepar ation of nanocrystalline diamond films for practical field emission purpose s. (C) 1999 Elsevier Science S.A. All rights reserved.