Field Emission from Amorphous carbon Nitride Films Deposited on silicon Tip Arrays

Amorphous carbon nitride films (a-CNx) were deposited on silicon tip arrays by rf magnetron sputtering in pure nitrogen atmosphere. The field emission property of carbon nitride films on Si tips was compared with that of carbon nitride of silicon wafer. The results show that field emission property of carbon nitride films deposited on silicon tips can be improved significantly in contrast with that on wafer. It can be explained that field emission is sentitive to the local curvature and geometry, thus silicon tips can effectively promote field emission property of a-CNx films. In addition, the films deposited on silicon tips have a smaller effective work function (F=0.024eV) of electron field emission than that on silicon wafer (F=0.060eV), which indicates a significant enhancement of the ability of electron field emission from a-CNx films.