Laser was coupled into an optical fiber,on which covered a layer of well-aligned carbon nanotubes(CNTs)serving as cathode,to tune the field emission of the cathode.CNT arrays as field emission cathode were synthesized by chemical vapor deposition(CVD)on a naked fiber core.When the laser was coupled into the fiber,the turn-on voltage(Vto at a current density of 1 mA cm?2)decreased from 1.0 to 0.9 kV and the emission current density increased from 0.83 mA cm?2(at a 1 kV bias voltage)to3.04 mA cm?2 on 40μm diameter fiber.A photon absorption mechanism is attributed to the field emission improvement.The estimated effective work function of CNT arrays on the optical fiber decrease from 4.89 to 4.29 eV.The results show the possibility of constructing a waveguide type laser modulated field emission cathode.
Field emission properties of zinc oxide （ZnO） nanoparticles （NPs） decorated carbon nanotubes （CNTs） are investigated experimentally and theoretically. CNTs are in situ decorated with ZnO NPs during the growth process by chemical vapor deposition using a carbon source from the iron phthalocyanine pyrolysis. The experimental field emission test shows that the ZnO NP decoration significantly improves the emission current from 50 μA to 275 μA at 550 V and the reduced threshold voltage from 450 V to 350 V. The field emission mechanism of ZnO NPs on CNTs is theoretically studied by the density functional theory （DFT） combined with the Penn-Plummer method. The ZnO NPs reconstruct the ZnO-CNT structure and pull down the surface barrier of the entire emitter system to 0.49 eV so as to reduce the threshold electric field. The simulation results suggest that the presence of ZnO NPs would increase the LDOS near the Fermi level and increase the emission current. The calculation results are consistent with the experiment results.
