Electron field emission was measured from carbon and silicon thin films com
prised of a porous, pillar microstructure fabricated by the glancing angle
deposition technique. This single step glancing angle deposition technique
leads to a high areal density of pillars with nanometer-scale diameters. A
comparison of emission has been made against normal dense films of the same
material. It has been observed that emission from the pillar films occurs
at a much lower threshold voltage than emission from the normally deposited
film. (C) 2001 Elsevier Science B.V. All rights reserved.