Study of the emission performance of carbon nanotubes

The carbon nanotube has good field emission properties, so it has been used as the electron source on the field emission display panel. To obtain a hi gh emission current, the electric field at the tip of the nanotube must be large enough. This article studies the variation of electric field with dif ferent types of nanotubes. The emission current of the nanotube is also cal culated for various geometrical parameters of nanotubes. From the simulatio n results, the influence of the geometrical parameters on the emission perf ormance of nanotubes is studied. (C) 2000 American Vacuum Society. [S0734-2 11X(00)03306-8].