Diamond films and islands grown by chemical vapor deposition were implanted with boron, sodium, and carbon ions at doses of 10 14-10 15 /cm 2. This structural modification at the subsurface resulted in a significant reduction of the electric field required for electron emission. The threshold field for producing a current density of 10 mA/cm 2 can be as low as 42 V/m for the as-implanted diamond compared to 164 V/m for the high quality p-type diamond. When the ion-implanted samples were annealed at high temperatures in order to anneal out the implantation-induced defects, the low-field electron emission capability of diamond disappeared. These results further confirm our earlier findings about the role of defects in the electron emission from undoped or p-type doped diamond and indicate that the improved emission characteristics of as-implanted diamond is due to the defects created by the ion implantation process.

We have developed both experimental and numerical methods to collect and analyze field emission data from diamond samples. The diamond emitters are either films prepared by low pressure chemical vapor deposition (CVD) or powders synthesized by traditional high pressure high temperature (HPHT) processes. We established a strong correlation between the electric field required for emission and the defect densities in undoped or p-type doped diamond. We further found that ultrafine diamond particulate emitters offer substantially enhanced electron field emission properties at low electric fields compared to CVD diamond emitters. When subject to appropriate processing schemes, the particulate diamond emitters exhibit extremely low emission fields, typically 1-5 V/μm for a current density of 10 mA/cm2. These are believed to be the lowest-voltage field emitters ever reported.

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Recent advances in ion implantation