FIELD-EMISSION STUDIES OF BORON-DOPED CVD DIAMOND FILMS FOLLOWING SURFACE TREATMENTS

The electron emission from highly twinned, undoped Chemical Vapour Dep osited (CVD) diamond thin films has been found to exhibit a stable vol tage threshold of 15 V mu m(-1). In this study the same material has b een boron-doped by ion-implantation at two different energy profiles. A number of surface treatments including, Excimer laser annealing, hyd rogen passivation, argon/oxygen plasma etching and also coating with g old, were employed in an attempt to enhance the electron emission prop erties of the highly twinned surface. It has been found that these tre atments tend to degrade the electron emission performance, promoting m ore surface damage and instability in the electron emission current. T hese results are compared against the emission performance of samples of high quality boron-doped material exhibiting both similar and dissi milar surface textures. (C) 1997 Elsevier Science S.A.