Field emission from silicon spikes with diamond coatings

Abstract

Diamond-coated silicon field emitters were fabricated and investigated. Emission currents of few μA per tip at voltages of several hundred volts were obtained from very blunt tips with curvature radii up to 3 μm. The values of the effective work function calculated from Fowler–Nordheim plot were in the range from 0.3 to 1.2 eV. Two models for an explanation of the experimental data are proposed.