Preparation of the Printed Carbon Nanotubes Cold Cathode in Field Emission Display and Post-Treatment Technique Using Reactive Ion Etching

Abstract

Printable carbon nanotubes (CNTs) cathode slurry was prepared by a reactive ion etching (RIE) post-treatment technique with CNTs, organic vehicles and inorganic binder, i.e., silicon dioxide (SiO2) sol as the raw materials. RIE treatment was introduced to improve field emission characteristics of the CNTs cold cathode screen-printed by the new slurry. The results showed that the RIE treatment could effectively remove parts of inorganic vehicle (i.e., SiO2) layer of the cathode surface and expose plentiful CNTs on the cathode. This would enable the as-prepared cathode to be novel electron emitter and to improve its field emission characteristics and uniformity of the cathode. The effect of RIE treatment conditions on the structural characteristics of the CNTs cold cathode was investigated and field emission enhancement mechanism was proposed.

High-performance field emission of carbon nanotube paste emitters fabricated using graphite nanopowder filler

“…A lifetime measurement was carried out to investigate the long-term emission stability of the CNT paste emitters. The long-term emission stability was first measured by applying a constant anode voltage at the starting emission current of 1 mA that corresponds to a current density of 260 mA cm −2 , which is a much higher value than those in previous works [6,10,13,35,36]. A more important point is that this measurement was conducted under a more stringent condition, as a DC power supply was used without a ballast resistor or a current controller [10,37].…”

“…Among various methods, CNT paste emitters have been widely studied because of their easy and simple fabrication, low cost and possibility of mass production. To date, CNT paste emitters are commonly fabricated by a screen-printing method for which metal-, SiO 2 -, or SiC-particle fillers are used on metal or glass substrates [9][10][11][12][13][14].…”

“…Nevertheless, the emission current or the emission current density of those CNT paste emitters was generally low because the filler materials used did not offer sound electrical conductivity or tight adhesion between the cathode and the emitting material. To overcome these problems, Song et al recently proposed the use of an alloy that withstands high temperatures around 900 °C as the filler instead of metal; they also suggested using a filler that is capable of chemical reaction with the substrate to enhance mechanical adhesion [13,20]. In this work, graphite nanopowder is used as the filler material in the CNT paste, which is different from commonly used filler materials such as indium tin oxide (ITO), Ag, Ni, SiO 2 and SiC nanoparticles.…”

Field Emission Cathodes to Form an Electron Beam Prepared from Carbon Nanotube Suspensions

“…However, it is difficult to discuss the effect of the treatment on emission due to a lack of data provided for comparison or other aspects influencing FE cathode properties, e.g., technology. Other methods were also investigated, such as the use of liquid elastomer [140], a soft rubber-roller [122,123,[141][142][143], mechanical crush [144], and plasma [119,133,[145][146][147]. The last one is believed not only to make CNTs protrude from the matrix (Figure 14c), but also to clear the cathode surface, improving the uniformity and reducing the cathode aging, and thus improving the FE characteristics (Figure 14d).…”