Enhanced Field Emission from Ultrananocrystalline Diamond-Decorated Carbon Nanowalls Prepared by a Self-Assembly Seeding Technique

Vertically aligned nanographite structures, the so-called carbon nanowalls (CNWs), are decorated with ultrananocrystalline diamond particles by an electrostatic self-assembly seeding technique, followed by short-term growth in plasma chemical vapor deposition, to enhance field emission efficiency and stability. A nanodiamond suspension diluted with a dispersion medium with high wettability on CNWs enables seeding of diamond nanograins consisting of nanoparticles of 3–5 nm in diameter on CNWs with high uniformity and minimal aggregation and control of their number density. The field emission turn-on field depends upon the density of diamond nanograins and decreases from 3.0 V μm^–1 for bare CNWs to 1.8 V μm^–1 for diamond-decorated CNWs together with about an order of magnitude increase in current density. Finite element modeling indicates that only a part of decorating diamond located at the top of nanowalls actually contributes to field amplification and emission. The diamond-decorated CNWs show also higher emission stability with much larger time constants of current degradation than the bare CNWs for long-term duration. The enhanced emission efficiency is explained by larger field amplification rather than lowering of the tunneling barrier, while the enhanced emission stability is attributed to the higher robustness of diamond.