Field emission properties of α-C:N films deposited on diamond substrates

Amorphous carbon-nitride films were grown on the nitridated diamond substrates by pulsed discharge of nitrogen gas by using graphite rods as the electrodes. The deposition parameters were optimized by monitoring the discharge plasma by optical-emission spectroscopy. It is demonstrated that the films were mainly a mixture of sp² C-N, sp³ C-N and graphite nanocrystallites. Preliminary results show that deposited films have a cold-cathode-emission property. The threshold field for field emission is about 4.0 V/μm. The linear Fowler-Nordheim characteristic reveals that the field-emission process is based on the tunneling mechanism