| Research Abstract |
Field emission characteristics of amorphous carbon nitride (a-C : N) thin films were studied in the applied field strength range of up to 20 V/μm with comparing the characteristics of amorphous carbon (a-C) thin films. Both a-C : N and a-C films were deposited on Si substrates by means of shielded arc ion plating (SAIP) using nitrogen or argon as an operating gas, respectively, and graphite as a solid carbon source. The a-C : N films showed better field emission characteristics, that is, lower threshold field strengths and higher maximum emission current densities, than the a C films. Nitrogen doping to a-C was found to be effective in order to improve the field emission characteristics. Among all of the fabricated a-C : N films, the film containing 23% nitrogen, prepared using a nitrogen arc plasma at a pressure of 1 Pa with applying a sample bias voltage of 100 V, showed the lowest thresholdrfield and the highest emission current density. Furthermore, thickness of this a-C : N was optimized to be ca. 40 nm in order to the best field emission characteristics , that is, a threshold field of 12 V/μm and a emission current density of 3.6 μA/cm^2 at a field of 20 V/μm.
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