Improved field emission properties of thiolated multi-wall carbon nanotubes on a flexible carbon cloth substrate

Abstract

In this paper we report the observation of enhanced field emission properties from thiolated multi-wall carbon nanotubes (MWCNTs) produced by a simple and effective two-step chemical surface modification technique. This technique implements carboxylation and thiolation on the MWCNTs synthesized by microwave plasma chemical vapor deposition (MPCVD) on the flexible carbon cloth substrate. The resulting thiolated MWCNTs were found to have a very low threshold field value of 1.25 V µm(-1) and a rather high field enhancement factor of 1.93 × 10(4), which are crucial for applications in versatile vacuum microelectronics.