Field Emission from Amorphous Carbon Nitride Films Deposited on Silicon Tip Arrays

Amorphous carbon nitride films (a-CN_x) 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 on 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 sensitive to the local curvature and geometry, thus silicon tips can effectively promote field emission property of a-CN_x films. In addition, the films deposited on silicon tips have a smaller effective work function (F = 0.024 eV) of electron field emission than that on silicon wafer (F = 0.060 eV), which indicates a significant enhancement of the ability of electron field emission from a-CN_x films.