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
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