Improvement of electron field emission from carbon nanotubes by Ar neutral beam treatment

To improve the field emission properties of screen printed carbon nanotube (CNT) films, an Ar neutral beam was used as one of the surface treatment techniques and the CNT field emission characteristics after the treatment were compared with those after Ar ion beam treatment. The Ar neutral beam treatment enhanced the field emission properties of the CNTs and by decreasing the turn-on field and by increasing emission sites. When the field emission properties were measured after the treatment for 10 s with an energy of 100 eV, the turn-on field decreased from 1.7 to 0.9 V/μm while that after the ion beam treatment increased from 1.7 to 2.8 V/μm showing damage of exposed CNTs due to the intensive bombardment by the positive ions in the beam. The neutral beam treatment appeared to expose more CNT field emitters from the CNT paste without cutting or severely damaging the already exposed long CNT emitters because there were no charged particles in the beam.